Theocacao
Leopard
Design Element
Comment on "First Look at Cappuccino and Objective-J"
by Mason — Sep 05
Also, I think it might be beneficial for many Cocoa programmers to use this framework in an entirely different way than shown off in 280 Slides. For example, my website http://www.giantrobotsoftware.com/ could benefit with some simple Core Animation to "expand" categories on the side and display the screenshot thumbnails in a Collection View, while looking pretty much the same as it is already.

I think this is exactly what Cappuccino is not for. From the website:

Designed for Applications

Nobody will deny that there is a distinct difference between a web site and a desktop application. Similarly, we believe there is a big difference between a static web page and a full fledged web application. Cappuccino is designed for applications, not web pages.
...
Cappuccino is not designed for building web sites, or making existing sites more "dynamic". We think these goals are too far removed from those of application development to be served well by a single framework. Projects like Prototype and jQuery are excellent at those tasks, but they are forced by their nature to make compromises which render them ineffective at application development.

I think there's some general confusion about what exactly Cappuccino is. As Scott said, you won't be able to take your Mac application and have it magically run on the web. A lot of desktop developers (in particular) seem to be coming to Cappuccino with this expectation, and finding themselves disappointed that certain things are missing. It's already been asked on the mailing list if there is (or will be) something akin to Interface Builder and .nib files. While there's certain bits of code in the framework hinting that such a thing may exist (nib2cib or some such), I don't think that's the appropriate mindset to approach this framework.

I don't know of this makes any sense, but here's how I think of it: Objective-J and Cappuccino bring the niceties of Obj-C/Cocoa to web development more than it brings to desktop development the niceties of having your desktop app run on the web. As someone approaching this from the standpoint of a web app developer, I see Obj-J/Cappuccino as a tool to help me remove HTML/JS/CSS/Cross-browser compatibility from the equation, and help me focus on the app itself. I do not see it as an easy/simple way to bring my Cocoa applications to the 'nets.

Or, perhaps put more simply, Cappuccino is Cocoa in spirit, and not necessarily a web-clone of Cocoa.
Back to "First Look at Cappuccino and Objective-J"
Design Element

Copyright © Scott Stevenson 2004-2015