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From: djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++
Subject: Re: C++ vs Objective-C
Message-ID: <1588@megatest.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Oct-87 21:25:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: megatest.1588
Posted: Thu Oct  1 21:25:06 1987
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Oct-87 01:04:13 EDT
References: <3405@ece-csc.UUCP> <638@its63b.ed.ac.uk> <1811@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <604@artecon.artecon.UUCP>
Reply-To: djones@megatest.UUCP (Dave Jones)
Organization: Megatest Corporation, San Jose, Ca
Lines: 35

In article <604@artecon.artecon.UUCP> donahue@artecon.UUCP (Brian D. Donahue) writes:
>In article <1811@watcgl.waterloo.edu> kdmoen@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Doug Moen) writes:
>>csrdi@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Rick Innis, CS4) writes:
>>>... I'd also like C++, and may well end up porting
>>>that myself, but I've been told that Objective-C is a better language -
>>>any versions available?
>>
>>Strange... My understanding is that C++ is the better language.
>>
>>I've used C++, but not Objective-C.  I have talked to someone who
>>spent a significant amount of time using Objective-C, and who warned
>>me against it.  Here are my impressions:
>>
>>Objective-C is apparently C with Smalltalk code embedded using escape
>>sequences.  The problem is that when you program in Objective-C, you
>>have to deal with two universes: the C universe, and the Smalltalk universe.
>
>whoa! what universe did your friend come from?  Objective-C is a 
>preprocessor that outputs straight C code.  It has nothing to do with
>Smalltalk at all (except for object oriented concepts of course).
>
>>    [...]
>>
 [...]
>Brian Donahue			{seismo, sdcsvax}!esosun!artecon!donahue


The allusion to Smalltalk probably refers to the fact that Objective-C
has fascilities for the binding of methods at runtime.  C++ is (I think)
mostly just a preprocessor, while  Objective-C brings some runtime features 
to the party.  It even has an interpretter that can be embedded in an 
application.

The Objective-C book is quite good reading.  But the product itself may be
too expensive to try on speculation.