Objective-C was invented in 1986, popularized by NeXT and brought over to Apple with Mac OS X. It is not an Apple-developed language.

Any developer worth a damn who knows C++, C# or Java should be able to learn ObjC rapidly. The syntax looks different, but all of the useful features are there, and then some.

It's not the language that determines the success of developers, it's the frameworks (or API's). Cocoa is an excellent framework and that makes ObjC look good. If the frameworks are a gnarled mess (and I think we all have seen more than one of those), the most beautiful, elegant language in the world can't save it.

Finally, the best programmers write in assembly language.

I was going to make the same point as you MacFanDave, but to be technical, Objective-C didn't come with OS X, it was NeXTSTEP, which evolved into OS X.

Message was edited by: leicaman

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Eric

There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence. - Will Rogers

Ha ha! That's laughable. The best programmers use the right language/frameworks for the job. Anyone who insists on assembly language for all tasks is either showing off or a masochist.

The best programmers build their own computers from scratch and program them with dip switches.

iPhone vs Android? It's really more like: iPhone & Android vs Windows Mobile

Apple and Google are friendly competitors that are both opening up areas that Microsoft has or is trying to lock down into its crumbling monopoly. It's like saying eMusic vs. iTunes or liberals vs. green party members. Doesn't make much sense.

I feel that this article is very incomplete. There was actually no talk about the respective SDKs! How is this a showdown? The language doesn't dictate the SDK.

Try this:

The iPhone SDK offers:

An interface builder and Xcode IDE tools (which Mac programmers are already familiar with)

Tools to profile your app and examine performance bottlenecks, etc. (Instruments)

A simulator so you can quickly compile your project and run it without the hardware. (Great for speeding up development and testing)

Lots of APIs (Cocoa Touch) for touch-based events along with the usual apis. Let's not forget Core Animation, new to 10.5 delivers stunning animation capabilities through a nice API...(unless you like the blah look of software made for WinCE).

So what tools do developers use for the Android platform? Can you drag and drop out your pretty interface for Android?

Apple's platform may be a bit more constrained, but they put heavy R&D into user-interface design and I've already realized how conforming to their current iPhone app designs could make some easy-to-use software I've been thinking about.

As I started this comment with, this article just feels shallow and thrown together.

Yep...and we get the usual confusion about Java being slow, when the language has very little to do with performance. Most people's experience of Java-sourced application performance is via the JVM, and since Android doesn't use the JVM, but Dalvik, we need to wait until the hardware is out before comparing.