I would like to write an app for the iPad but I can't stand Objective-C.
Is there a language generator that would spit out Objective-C but let me write my iPad application in another language?
I've heard a little about MacRuby and am curious whether it could be used this way. Any other similar projects in other languages?
C# with MonoTouch.
JavaScript with Appcelerator Titanium.
Flex with ELIPS Studio 3.
Python with PyObjC (for jailbroken iPhones though).
Apparently Lua is an option.
John McIntosh uses Smalltalk on the iPhone. For instance, his Mobile Wiki Server app.
No computer anywhere (well maybe some) cares what language you write your programs in. Heck, you could hand-write machine instructions if you were patient (and crazy) enough. As long as you can figure out how to interact properly with the system call interface and the ABI, you can do whatever you want.
You could use Corona, Torque, or Unity. These all have advantages and disadvantages compared to using the standard Objective-C SDK, but really, if it's about the language itself, it's hard to see how you would be better able to "stand" the languages supported by these three than Objective-C.
Related
I'm about to write code for Windows that has somewhat similar functionality to the one existing in already written application for iPhone. I'm thinking of separating common functionality to form a component and compile it to both to iPhone and to Windows. This code is written in Objective C and uses RestKit and Core Data (and probably sqlite). Is compiling it for Windows a viable task? As I understand it GCC could compile Objective C on Windows but I'm unsure about the RestKit and Core Data api availability on Windows. I have seen two names that could be of use: GNUStep and Cocotron but I don't know if they will play well together with RestKit.
Note: I have no idea about iOS development so I might be confusing things. Any help is appreciated.
You will not easily be able to share this functionality between your applications. CoreData uses a custom opaque (not documented) format for the sql store. You would be hard pressed to reverse engineer this.
You will probably save a lot of time by rewriting that part for windows, rather than trying to get it working. There really isn't much iOS code that can be reused under windows, unless you have written pure C or C++.
I have some basic familiarity with Objective-C, but prefer Ruby, so I'm thinking of playing around with MacRuby. Is it possible to use MacRuby to develop applications for the Mac App Store, or do I have to use Objective-C? (Note that I don't care so much about iOS/the iPhone and iPad store right now, just the Mac OS X app store.)
And to answer the actual question, yes, see http://lists.macosforge.org/pipermail/macruby-devel/2010-November/006475.html.
Short answer: Yes, you can, technically, build such an app. You need to revisit the store guidelines to know what requirements must be met to submit to the various stores.
This comes up sporadically; beyond the guidelines that #NSResponder mentioned, the reality is that you'll just be spending a lot of extra & unnecessary time if you decide to use MacRuby unless you plan on using some large chunk of already written Ruby code in your app.
Learning Objective-C is about 2% of the overall learning needed to be an effective Cocoa developer. The other 98% is everything from memory management model to standard idioms like KVC/KVO/delegation to NIB files to the myriad of classes & APIs throughout the system.
All of those things are written in Objective-C (or C) with documentation targeting Objective-C and examples written in Objective-C.
As well, the entire tool chain is focused on validating, compiling, indexing, debugging, and manipulating Objective-C.
If you want to use MacRuby to build a real Cocoa app, you are going to have to know Objective-C through and through anyway. And you are going to have to deal with whatever bugs and impedance mismatch is in the bridge layer, too.
Yes. As the Mac developer forums says:
My Mac app is not written in
Objective-C. Is this allowed on the
MacApp Store?
Yes, provided it also adheres to the
Mac App Store Review Guidelines at
http://developer.apple.com/appstore/mac/resources/approval/guidelines.htmland
the Mac Developer Program License
Agreement at
http://developer.apple.com/programs/terms/mac/mac_program_agreement_20101020.pdf
(via alloy)
Read the submission guidelines here: https://developer.apple.com/appstore/mac/resources/approval/guidelines.html
Looking on-line I saw that I can write most of the application in Ansi-C code or as a website and present it in a webView control.
Then besides some general knowledge about iOS and the API... Do I really need to learn Objective C?
You could use something like PhoneGap, which wraps an HTML-based application into a native launcher app. It may not be as powerful as what you can do with a pure native app, but on the other hand, your code will not only run on iOS.
PhoneGap does offer access to some of the phone's API (camera, notifications, accelerometer and so on) that you normally only get in native apps (it exposes them as JavaScript objects), so you can do more than you could in a regular HTML5 webapp, even without learning Objective-C.
Most people overlook the fact the iPhone has an extremely capable web browser. You can create very powerful web apps and therefore avoid having to learn objective C.
Safari on the iPhone has a bunch of great HTML5 features, including local sqlite stoage - so for example you could easily make a todo list app which could sync up with your server when there's a net connection.
You can even add home screen icons etc.. personally I'm astonished people don't write iPhone web apps more!
This is a super useful guide on how to do it:
http://building-iphone-apps.labs.oreilly.com/
You can use C# to write iPhone apps using MonoTouch, but it costs money. Then again, so does developing for the iPhone the normal way.
The other answers are correct in that you /can/ use other languages... you really don't want to. You are never going to create a pleasant to use, standard, and HIG-abiding application without learning Objective-C. Truly, though, there's no reason /not/ to learn something new. It's not particularly difficult (like, say, C++), and Cocoa is a well-designed API.
Somewhat related, I personally refuse to install all the PhoneGap/etc apps in the App Store as I find them of significantly less inherent quality (especially as compared to the rest of the apps on the device), and I would suspect many non-developers would have similar issues with them, if not so specific.
Unless your app is all web, or uses a framework such as PhoneGap you have to have some working knowledge of obj-C. It's actually not that bad. It's C with Smalltalk bolted onto it.
It's generally much simpler than C++.
if u want true native app that can take advantage of the latest features on the latest iOS release, Objective-C is da language you gotta learn.
Objective-C is a very powerful language, and there are a ton of great frameworks - you are doing yourself a HUGE disservice by not learning the language, and your app quality will suffer as a result.
You can write an entire iPhone app in C++ using a framework like libnui.
Is there any other scripting language that can be used to embed scripts inside applications, which can access Mac OS X, or application classes with the same features, or most of the features seen in F-script?
The scripting language with the best support on the Mac is still AppleScript. But unlike F-Script, it cannot directly access the Objective-C level, it can only use what the target application chooses to expose for scripting.
There are Objective-C bridges for Perl, Python, and Ruby. I suppose those can embedded to provide scripting to your application.
Nu is an interesting option, although it isn't very popular yet.
A lot of people seem to like JSTalk.
But probably Applescript is your best bet: integrated into the system and all that.
I would say F-Script for many reasons. It has many unique features and is extremely tightly integrated with Cocoa and the Objective-C runtime. You can for example inspect various Finder classes (windows, icons, coverflow view...) and it's very easy (one or two lines of code) to start or control other processes. I don't think there is any good reason to prefer AppleScript. It's good for very short scripts, but will probably drive you crazy if you want to do something more complex.
Also, MacRuby is going to rock when it's a bit more stable, and some serious stuff has been accomplished using PyObjC as well, although I don't think it's very actively maintained anymore.
If you don't need F-Script graphical introspection tools, which are quite unique, there are some decent scripting languages that you can embed in applications. See in Particular RubyCocoa (for Ruby), PyObjC (for Python), JSTalk (for JavaScript) and CamelBones (for Perl). They are based on bridges between Cocoa and a foreign object model, which leads to some complexities. This is different from F-Script, which is directly built for the Cocoa object model. When ready, MacRuby might be an option too, but the syntax for manipulating Objective-C objects is not very nice (it improves on RubyCocoa, though). Nu is also an option: directly built for Cocoa like F-Script, but with a strong Lisp flavor.
MacRuby is an implementation of Ruby 1.9 that uses the Objective-C runtime and garbage collector. It can be embedded in a Objective-C application.
Even if the last available version is only 0.6, it is reported to be stable enough to be used in applications.
I'm a C++, Java developer and I want to program for Mac in something "nicer" than Objective-C.
I know Java Swing can mimic the MacOS X UI, but a Java Swing program is not a Cocoa first citizen. Also I know that I can use Qt in C++ or Jambi in Java to use the Qt toolkit that performs Cocoa calls but, though that is not a bad idea, it adds an abstraction layer in all the thing.
So, is there something like "Vala" for GTK+ or some Java bindings or some stuff to do Cocoa programming with no need of all the Objective-C thing?
[DISCLAIMER: "nicer" is just my appreciation, no trolling there]
It is indeed an inflammatory question.
There are bindings for Ruby and Python, if those fit your bill.
http://developer.apple.com/leopard/overview/apptech.html
Objective-C isn't all that un-nice and not all that dissimilar to Java in several ways, really, if you take some time to learn it.
MacRuby + HotCocoa lets you do it all in Ruby, and in a Rubyesque way - it looks more natural than a foreign binding might suggest.
Give Monobjc a shot. It's been great to work with.
If you're interested in .NET programming, you can use the Mono framework to program in pretty much any environment, including iPhone:
http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page