what's objective C?

[vamsi acharya]

What is actually objective C ??? ....is it similar to CPP ?? ....Can you even build mobile applications using this language ??

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Apple uses Objective-C for all iOS programming and this includes iPhone, iPad and iPod touches so yes, Objective-C is used for mobile platform.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Objective-C
http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/ObjectiveC/Introduction/introObjectiveC.html

[Sai Hegde]

You can get a free Green paper about iOS4 from the authors on the Manning site. It has been very well put together.

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Well, this is my own personal opinion but I think Objective-C is a much more elegant language than C++.
Yes Objective-C looks like a hack build upon C language but it is a very well put hack. The language itself is really minimal.
I enjoy coding in Objective-C.

[snehasish barman]

Since it’s essence, Obj-C has been growing in popularity among developers. It’s one of the most versatile and easy to code languages. We can toll-free bridge between C,C++ and Obj-C. It is a superset of C with Object Oriented features along with other runtime improvements.

[Pat Farrell]

vamsi acharya wrote:What is actually objective C ??? ....is it similar to CPP ?? ....Can you even build mobile applications using this language ??

In reverse order, effectively Objective C is the only language for development on the iPhone/iPad/iPod-touch.

I would not say that it is similar to CPP unless you use a very broad definition. CPP is really a different language with just some legacy C stuff.
Objective-C is also a different language than C, with a fair amount of legacy C stuff, but a whole lot of Smalltalk grafted onto it.

Objective C is a language designed in the early 1980s by Brad Cox and used by Next in the NextStep machine. Next is of course, the failed next generation computer that Steve Jobs created when he was kicked out of Apple. When Apple brought Steve back, he brought major parts of the NextStep operating system.

While the language is the same for both OS-X and IOS development, there are a lot of differences. I think its more accurate to talk about OS-X or IOS development, they are similar and use some of the same frameworks, but other stuff is different.

The Objective-C that most folks care about is both a language and the object-oriented framework (library) that folks use to write IOS and OS-X applications.

[Hussein Baghdadi]

Objective-C isn't the only language for iOS development, C and C++ are also used especially for gaming.
Large parts of Cocoa/Cocoa Touch Core frameworks are coded in C language. It is not uncommon in iOS development to write C code.
A weird creature also exists, it is called: Objective-C++. Never touched it any way.

[Pat Farrell]

John Todd wrote:Objective-C isn't the only language for iOS development, C and C++ are also used especially for gaming.

OK, I stand corrected. But I can't imagine writing modern GUI code, say for IOS using C. Well, I can imagine it, I can even remember doing it for Windows 386/2.11 and much of the early Windows 3.0 days. MS Visual C++ didn't get released until Windows NT. What I remember gives me nightmares.

C++ is not my favorite language. so far, I'm thinking that Objective-C is ahead.

[nik gen]

Hi,

Objective-C is an object oriented language which lies on top of the C language.It was originally the main language for NeXTSTEP OS.
You can say Objective-C is a strict super set of C. You can also use the C file and it will compile fine.

It is mainly used for computing on MAC OS X. you can use it as a desktop language as well as iOS development.

Thanks,
Niketa.

[Pat Farrell]

nik gen wrote: It is mainly used for computing on MAC OS X. you can use it as a desktop language as well as iOS development.

Is Objective-C used for anything other than OS-X and IOS development these days? I would guess that "mainly" is too weak, its only used for Apple world development.

There was a fairly active use of it back in the early to mid-1980s, but it dropped out of sight except for the NextStep folks in the '90s. At least until the second coming of Chairman Steve.