Are Apple platforms the only place Objective-C is a good choice?

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+2 Q:

Are Apple platforms the only place Objective-C is a good choice?

If you are not developing for an Apple platform, are there reasons to choose Objective-C? I know of GNUstep (which I do not find visually pleasing), but what else is there?

If you want to develop for multiple platforms, including OS X or iOS but also Linux or Windows, when might Objective-C be a good choice?

+1 A:

There is The Cocotron

Clozure Common Lisp (CCL) on 32-bit Windows platforms now includes experimental support for the Cocoa frameworks using the Cocotron open source project.

Doug Currie 2010-07-21 02:03:26

+4 A:

Outside Apple, The only major Objective-C environment is GNUSTEP/Windowmaker.
It's a shame, since Objective-C is a much nicer and saner language than C++.

sespindola 2010-07-21 02:03:54

Agreed. :/ Too bad Windows doesn't support the BETTER languages, but I guess that's Microsoft for you. ;)

esqew 2010-07-21 02:05:45

I guess this is extremely subjective. I don't like the fact C primitive types and structs don't play at the same level Objective-C objects do (you can't easily mix the two). @seanny94: Microsoft has C#, which I find to be a great language.

zneak 2010-07-21 02:11:26

@seanny; microsoft has loads of tools you can use to build an obj c compiler and associated visual studio tooling such as intellisense support etc. I like objective c well enought, but lets face it; if people really wanted it on the microsoft platform, there would be an open source effort and we'd have it.

Steve 2010-07-21 02:51:25

+2 A:

Take a look at Cocotron, which is a port of Cocoa to Windows. If the Mac is your main target, this may be a way to get Windows as well. But, Apple platforms are the best place for ObjC -- if you aren't targeting Apple, I wouldn't use it.

Lou Franco 2010-07-21 02:06:24

Thanks. How mature is the project?

procrastinate_later 2010-07-21 02:23:17

A few years. I actually know the developer and he's very serious about it -- it's in active development. I believe that he his business depends on it existing (he develops it for personal professional use)

Lou Franco 2010-07-21 02:31:03

Ive seen that site but it seemed dead as the site hasn't been updated since 2008. Seems to me like "obj-c.net" would be a lot more "doable" than porting the language AND the cocoa framework.

Steve 2010-07-21 02:55:57

The site looks dead but the codebase is alive. There is more concise info on this at http://cocoawithlove.com/2010/04/porting-mac-program-to-windows-using.htmlI have used it for one project where I had to support windows users :(

Brent Priddy 2010-07-21 05:14:48

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Are Apple platforms the only place Objective-C is a good choice?

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