Cocoa, Objective-C to HTML?

Question

As far as I've been able to find, there seems to be one option for building websites/web applications in Objective-J with Cappuccino.

The .NET is a huge framework that of course can compile for the web. I don't think it's a stupid question to ask whether or not Objective-C can be used for the same purpose.

Apple doesn't advertise being able to develop websites with Objective-C, but I thought I'd ask anyways.

Other than Cappuccino, is it possible or just completely not possible?

Answer 1

WebObjects was an Objective C framework, but transitioned to Java a decade ago. However, it still has the Cocoa/Obj C feel, still using foundation classes such as NSArray as well as key concepts like KVC and MVC. The Apple online store and the iTunes Store are two successful examples of web applications written using WebObjects.

Answer 2

It'd be possible to build websites in Objective-C, the same way you'd be able to do it in C++ or even C.

There are pros and cons to both. The main pro is that these languages are generally more mature, robust and better featured than php, ruby etc. However, since they are not generally used for that purpose (unfortunately), there aren't many frameworks and/or workflows available. The most recognized for Obj-C is GNUstepWeb.

You also have to consider what you're doing. If you're building a web application that involves models, reports, etc, this would be a good way to go. On the other hand, if you're building a smaller website with more common features, chances are one of the "traditional" web-development platforms is going to be a better match.

I thought you might be interested in something like Cappuccino (Aka Objective-J) which is similar to Objective-C (in some ways) but fully designed for creating web application front ends. It compiles to Javascript.

Answer 3

Your question isn't stupid - but it is very broad and hard to answer. Are you talking about outputting HTML? Or are you talking about server side programming? Objective-C using Cocoa, or just vanilla Objective-C?

To start with, anything using cocoa frameworks cannot be compiled for the web. Period. You can imitate the Cocoa frameworks (like Cappuccino does), but it is not a small task.

It is possible to do web development with Objective-c (server-side), but it is not really feasible at the moment because you would have to write the libraries from scratch, and with so many other options out there for web development with complete frameworks (Ruby, PHP, Python, Java, etc) there really isn't any reason to do so.