[jwardell]

What exactly do I need to do and get in order to start developing Cocoa apps? Are there any additional tools or resources that anyone suggests? Do I really have to wait a month for apple to post PB tools, or is it reasonable to rip them out of DP4 or darwin?

-Josh

[ali]

Originally posted by jwardell:
What exactly do I need to do and get in order to start developing Cocoa apps? Are there any additional tools or resources that anyone suggests? Do I really have to wait a month for apple to post PB tools, or is it reasonable to rip them out of DP4 or darwin?

-Josh

You need the developer tools (compiler, debugger, the ProjectBuilder IDE), InterfaceBuilder for creating the UI, the C header files that contain the APIs, and probably a bunch of other stuff I can't remember. The developer package also comes with examples, release notes, and docs.

There's no guarantee the developer tools from DP4 will work on Public Beta; you also won't see the changes (some incompatible) made since then to the environment and APIs. So you probably have to wait for the free download of the tools, or pay for ADC ($400 until end of Sept) which might get them to you earlier.

Resources you can get to today include:

OmniGroup runs a mostly Cocoa-centric Mac OS X Developer mailing list:
http://www.omnigroup.com/community/d...sts/macosx-dev

Apple's developer website has growing amount of Cocoa documentation, including release notes:
http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/macosx.html

Ali




[This message has been edited by ali (edited 09-19-2000).]

[jwardell]

Thanks Ali.
I have been reading through the HelloWorld and AboutBox tutorials found on Apple's Cocoa docs pages. However, the tutorials are actually for making Carbon apps. Is Cocoa a different process?
Also, has anyone managed to get the DP4 or other tools to work in PB? Any comments?
Thanks.

You can find usefull informations at

developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/macosx.html

see Developer tools

[ali]

Originally posted by jwardell:
Thanks Ali.
I have been reading through the HelloWorld and AboutBox tutorials found on Apple's Cocoa docs pages. However, the tutorials are actually for making Carbon apps. Is Cocoa a different process?
Thanks.

Carbon on Mac OS 9 is considerably different, because you use CodeWarrior. On OS X you can use ProjectBuilder for Carbon, so the process for actually creating apps or frameworks is more similar.

However, no matter what IDE you use, the overall programming model and the APIs are quite different. Carbon is procedural; Cocoa is object-oriented. Cocoa gives you high level objects that you use as is or subclass. In addition, the Cocoa frameworks do most of the common app-level stuff for you.

Note that in general you can use Carbon functions from Cocoa (and Cocoa functions from Carbon); however, the overall design of an app or library will be significantly different depending on whether it's mainly Cocoa or Carbon.

There is a Cocoa tutorial (written in Java) on the Apple Cocoa website. There are also examples (both Objective-C and Java) in the developer package.

Ali

[jsbowers]

Does anyone know what the future of Java vs. Objective-C is for Cocoa development? From the surface, it looks as if Objective-C is the more attractive choice, but I want to make sure before I invest time learning it.

Have there been any official statements from Apple?

I've been messing with cocoa for the last few days. Its really sort of cool. I find the actions and outlets interesting. They have a pdf file that walks you though a simple cocoa java app called Temperature Converter. Now if your targeting just OS X then cocoa is the way.

The fact is *hardly anyone* uses objective c anymore outside of Apple. So, you'll get more out of Java. I'd say the smart thing to do is to develop a swing app then from that Jar make a Java app. Just my opinion.

[aabernathy]

Originally posted by marvin:
The fact is *hardly anyone* uses objective c anymore outside of Apple.

For what it's worth, that "hardly anyone" includes The Omni Group. While most of my current work is in Java for a client's WebObject's needs, in our evaluation Objective-C is a far more pleasant and flexible solution. (It's one big drawback vs Java is lack of garbage collection in Apple's implementation.)

OmniWeb is 100% Objective-C. (Ok, also some small bits of plain C, and even C++ for third-party bundles.) Same with OmniPDF, OmniOutliner, OmniDictionary, Omni[not-yet-announced], and pretty much everything we do, both for public distribution and for internal applications. That's not because we don't have Java experience - we do. And that has cemented our preference for Objective-C.

I hope that people will give Objective-C a fair shake. There are very legitimate reasons for going with Java, but there are very legitimate reasons for going with Objective-C as well. (And no language is perfect for everything - these two and others all have their place.)

Originally posted by aabernathy:
For what it's worth, that "hardly anyone" includes The Omni Group.

I hope that people will give Objective-C a fair shake. There are very legitimate reasons for going with Java, but there are very legitimate reasons for going with Objective-C as well. (And no language is perfect for everything - these two and others all have their place.)

Word is Tim is soliciting books on MacOS X. Perhaps someone in the Omni Group could write a O'Reilly book on the MacOS X Cocoa developement... or at least the Objective-C portion of such a book.

<http://www.oreilly.com/ask_tim/>