What are the disadvantages of using alternatives to Objective-C for iPhone development?
omg hai asked:
I want to get into iPhone development, but I have an important question. There are plenty of alternative to Objective-C, but the real question is, why WOULDN’T I use them? Let’s take Titanium for example. It can be used to create native applications for multiple platforms, and not just the iPhone. Wouldn’t it be much better to learn to use that instead? Are they less flexible/powerful? What’s the percentage of iPhone developers that directly use Objective-C to make their apps?
I want to get into iPhone development, but I have an important question. There are plenty of alternative to Objective-C, but the real question is, why WOULDN’T I use them? Let’s take Titanium for example. It can be used to create native applications for multiple platforms, and not just the iPhone. Wouldn’t it be much better to learn to use that instead? Are they less flexible/powerful? What’s the percentage of iPhone developers that directly use Objective-C to make their apps?
iPhone development is a great and fun hobby, which can bring in a significant amount of income. When you develop an application for the iPhone OS, you want to make it as user intuitive and as user friendly as possible. The way you do this though is completely your choice. You can program an iPhone app in several different types of languages, I personally prefer Obj-C (or any OOP language) over, lets say, HTML etc. As you begin to develop applications, you will realize that using a Obj-C is a lot easier, and it creates a better outcome. Obj-C is harder to learn if you do not already have prior knowledge of an OOP language (preferably C, C++), but once you get the hang of it, you will find out it is a much better language than Titanium or HTML. Obj-C has more methods and classes, and most of the apple documentation is geared towards Obj-C, so it is to your benefit to use Obj-C when creating iPhone or Mac apps. You should probably purchase a book on Obj-C, I recommend “Programming in Objective-C 2.0″ (2nd edition) by Stephen G. Kochan. When I began iPhone development, this was the 1st book I read to get a better feel for the language. Then you should probably read a book that teaches you about Cocoa/Cocoa Touch and the SDK, I would recommend “Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X” (3rd edition) by Aaron Hillegass, and just keep in mind that while they’re might be a few disadvantages to Obj-C (the major one –> learning the syntax if you hav no prior experience with C/C++), Obj-C is still far superior than most languages, and I recommend learning that to begin your iPhone development career. iDev