# C and Objective-C



## PoweMACuser (Jul 8, 2001)

hi all,
I have heard a lot advantage of Objective-C, but I want to know the disadvantage of it. Can Objective-C be portable to other platform? I am afraid that the non-Mac software developer will refuse to write their software for X although the WWDC said that there is about 20,000 developers develop the software for X.


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## Corvus (Jul 11, 2001)

Objective C is a superset of C and has the same disadvantages as C: terse, cryptic syntax, bizarre precedence rules, primitive memory and process management, a convoluted development cycle.

The main disadvantage of objective C itself is that it is a niche language; you won't find books about it in bookstores or courses on it at school. It is nearly impossible to get documentation, training, or support for it outside Apple development. It won't look good on your resume.

There was a project to support Objective C on other platforms at http://www.gnustep.org, but AFAIK it was never finished.

In my experience non-Mac developers have no intention of learning Objective C, but you can write OS X applications in C or C++. It is possible to port a C or C++ application to OS X using an Ojective C wrapper for the GUI and file system.


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