JSCocoa and the iPhone

Question

Now I have a stack of free time on my hands, I wanna get into iphone dev fo real.

But Objective C scares me (a bit). It feels I'm going a bit back in time. I say this because I've spent the last 8 months coding in C++.

JSCocoa looks awesome, but does this actually work on the iphone?

What would need to be done to get this working on the iphone?

(Replying here because I don't have enough 50 reputation) We can discuss this here or on Google Code http://code.google.com/p/jscocoa/issues/detail?id=38 — Patrick Geiller, Nov 29 '08 at 05:50

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 29 '08 at 05:31

(Hi, I'm the JSCocoa dev) JSCocoa works on the iPhone simulator. Check out the latest version from Google svn and compile iPhoneTest2.

To work on the iPhone, it needs libffi. I've seen http://code.google.com/p/iphone-dev/source/browse/trunk/llvm-gcc-4.0-iphone/ and some libffi posts regarding Python for iPhone, but have not tested any further.

Also I don't own an iPhone, so testing will mostly be up to someone who owns one :)

Thanks Patrick! Is there a place on the net we can further discuss this? — CVertex, Nov 29 '08 at 05:39

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:30

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With a Jailbroken iPhone, you can deffintely write applications in Python and Ruby (and probably JSCocoa, but I've never looked into it)

The problem is, to use PyObjC/RubyObjC (and most likely JSCocoa, and any other similar projects) you have to know how to use regular ObjC and Cocoa, as the frameworks are almost direct mappings to these.

See this answer, which can be summarised by..

I'm afraid that for the time being, you will need a basic grasp of ObjC in order to benefit from any language that uses Cocoa

edited May 23 '17 at 12:30

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answered Nov 29 '08 at 06:46

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Thanks. I can deal with an understanding of ObjC. I just wish I could code the bulk of my apps a language that uses dot notation. The other side-effect is my team can pick it up quickly, instead of a length training process. – CVertex Nov 29 '08 at 07:45
objective-c uses dot syntax for accessing properties of ivars. the learning curve isn't that steep. The cocoa APIs will take more time. No offense to patrick, but I would just go ahead and learn Objective-C for iPhone. – Genericrich Mar 02 '09 at 01:40

score 2 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 29 '08 at 08:26

a bit of off topic, but: You shouldn't be scared of Objective-C. Of course the syntax looks ugly at first (it did to me), but after a while you get hooked to it. And since you've spent 8 months in C++ i presume you have a good grasp of C which already lightens your weight on learning objective-c!

JSCocoa and the iPhone

3 Answers3