Prov.JS Meetup Recap – JavaScript Patterns in Objective C

Last Thursday night, Andrew Goodale gave an excellent presentation at ProvJS that highlighted some of the similarities between JavaScript and Objective-C. It turns out there are quite a few things we use in JavaScript that can be applied here, especially when it comes to basics of getting things done.

For example:

• Delegates, Events
• JSON
• Function Patterns
• Closures
• Loose Typing
• Dynamic invocation – obj_msgSend() vs. Function.apply()
• Objects – Key/Value coding vs. Hash table

These can all be taken advantage of in Objective-C. There are certainly some nuances here but it’s nice to see some familiar techniques when diving into a new language. There were some negatives mentioned such as memory management, “wordy” method/property names and funky syntax. Avoiding memory leaks was possibly the only serious fault I heard. I think the wordiness and funky syntax would be pretty easy to get used to. In fact, take a look at this:

(void)staticMethod:(int)foo

    { NSFileManager *mgr = [NSFileManager defaultManager]; NSError *myError;
    
    BOOL ok = [mgr createDirectoryAtURL : myURL withIntermediateDirectories : YES attributes : nil error : &myError]; }

Sure, its a bit wordy but as Andrew said, it’s not that far from this:

    JSFile.getDefaultManager().createDirectory({
        url: myURL,
        withIntermediateDirectories: true,
            attributes: null
    }); 

The Objective-C editor will even line up your colons (if you’re into that sort of thing).

So, if you like to code in JavaScript and were thinking about trying Objective-C, give it a shot. You may just find it a little bit familiar. Also, if you’re in the Providence area, stop by ProvJS and join us for a meetup!