Look at ActiveRecord, where one line of code like acts_as_tree can have such far reaching ramifications as defining a half-dozen methods
There's no doubt Ruby is a fantastic language. I really like it. But there's nothing that would stop Objective-C from doing something very similar to acts_as_tree. Objective-C, like Ruby, has runtime features that allow for adding methods on-the-fly and responding to messages that aren't implemented. The only difference is you'd have to do acts_as_tree() or something like that for syntax reasons.
The reason I personally prefer Objective-C for Cocoa is I find its syntax much easier to read and write for Cocoa code, which is probably because Cocoa was designed around it. I also think there's a sweet spot desktop development where a language is is both compiled and dynamic.
Those are just my preferences. If other people feel Ruby fits them better for Cocoa, then so be it.
by Scott Stevenson — Jan 06
There's no doubt Ruby is a fantastic language. I really like it. But there's nothing that would stop Objective-C from doing something very similar to acts_as_tree. Objective-C, like Ruby, has runtime features that allow for adding methods on-the-fly and responding to messages that aren't implemented. The only difference is you'd have to do acts_as_tree() or something like that for syntax reasons.
The reason I personally prefer Objective-C for Cocoa is I find its syntax much easier to read and write for Cocoa code, which is probably because Cocoa was designed around it. I also think there's a sweet spot desktop development where a language is is both compiled and dynamic.
Those are just my preferences. If other people feel Ruby fits them better for Cocoa, then so be it.