Further explanation on Obj-C

[Steven I . Citron-Pousty]

Dear all:
Thanks for the response (and the flame). I just wanted to give some
short responses to the
people who responded over the list.
Marcus:
My point in quoting you was that you said that the Java implementation
would not be acheived with Swarm 2.0.  I was just hoping it would be
ready to go with 2.0 ( I think that rhymes). I caught that you
references IBMs java programming tool. I understand that the time and
energy of the swarm team is limited therefore I am not slagging you, I
am just saddenend by the way of the world.
Others:
I like Obj-C as well, the object-oriented structure of it was very easy
for me to grasp. I did succesfully program in it to add some functions
to probes when I was at SFI. So don't get me wrong I think its a nice
language. My experience with GCC,emacs, and GDB was not as positive as
the respondents to the list. I was doing some of my programming with an
EE PhD student and if it wasn't for him I would have been lost
interpreting the error messages.
I am also a big supporter of GNU/Freeware products but there is a
tradeoff to using them. I think you have to admit that if you are not a
computer jock then _some_ of the products are not as easy to use.
Sometimes you get what you pay for (remember I said sometimes). We have
no sysadmin here to install SWARM or linux or GCC or emacs. Without this
support using these products becomes harder and more intimidating. Fine
call me a windows wimp but I didn't have to spend 5 days trying to get
my x-windows server running (and still not working) when I tried to
install linux on my box at home. And when I program in Delphi (laugh if
you want but its not a microsoft product), there is a large user
community to ask for support, it installed extremely easily, IDE is easy
for me to use, there are tons of books on Delphi and pascal, there are
standard libraries and routines to do the things I want to do. I am not
wedded to the unix environment and there are no powerful unix boxes in
my dept (I probably don't have access to one at my university) so I
don't care about cross-platform stuff. I am not saying that Delphi is
great, I am just trying to point out some of the advatages of the
proprietary/mass consumed products(which you may not see as advantages
but so be it).
I am not adverse to doing the hard bits, its just that too many hard
bits and you have to start wondering. I agree that I could probably
learn to program in SWARM/Obj-C on a linux/unix box, I could probably
get most questions answered sooner or later, and I could probably learn
a lot about modelling in the process.  But just as the swarm team has
limited time, so to do I and therefore I have to make decisions about
what I want to learn, when I want to learn it, and to what extent. I
agree that learning is fun, but so is finishing my PhD in a timely
fashion.
So if you need to correct me again go right ahead. I just want to
reiterate that I am all for swarm, I think its a great idea, I would
love to see it spread throughout the modelling community. I AM NOT
ANTI_SWARM!
Steve


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