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Programming IT Technology

Objective-J and Cappuccino Released 56

Wizard Drongo writes "280 North, who earlier this year released 280 Slides, a revolutionary new type of web-app written in Objective-J using the Cappuccino framework (both of which they also wrote), have today made good on their promise to open-source the language and framework. From their about page: 'Cappuccino is an open source application framework for developing applications that look and feel like the desktop software users are familiar with. Cappuccino was implemented using a new programming language called Objective-J, which is modeled after Objective-C and built entirely on top of JavaScript. Programs written in Objective-J are interpreted in the client, so no compilation or plugins are required. Objective-J is released alongside Cappuccino in this project and under the LGPL.' You can download the framework, tools, documentation and more on their website."
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Objective-J and Cappuccino Released

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  • Hmmm.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Friday September 05, 2008 @11:14AM (#24888615) Journal
    I'd say that the Objective-J name is confusing given the existence of a J language, but I guess Microsoft has already muddied those waters with J++ and J#...
    • Dy-no-mite!

    • by zoward ( 188110 )

      Confusing (and unappealing) names seem to be part of the software landscape. The important part of the announcement is that they open sourced the language and framework. Free software gains another set of tools. This is a Good Thing. Props to 280 North.

      • It's LGPL so ALL software (or at least web apps) can benefit.
      • by rk ( 6314 ) *

        Somewhere on my list of "things to do when I get a time machine":

        Find the Netscape and Sun marketroids who coined the name "JavaScript" and kick them all in the gender-appropriate gonads before they do it.

        • Might as well grab a list of all induhviduals and go throught time kicking their gender-appropriate gonads in proper alphabetical order.
    • Re:Hmmm.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Bill, Shooter of Bul ( 629286 ) on Friday September 05, 2008 @11:40AM (#24888969) Journal
      I really wasn't sure if you were talking about Java, or another language simply called J that I had never heard of. Turns out there is a language named J [wikipedia.org] that I've never heard of before. I can't imagine too many people would be confused. Most people have never even heard of J++ or J#,let a lone J.
      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by LotsOfPhil ( 982823 )
        I think most people have heard of J. I have never used J and know nothing about J, but I have heard of it. So, even though Objective-J was just released, I am as proficient in Objective-J as in J. Again, I think most people reading this are now in the same situation :)
        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by H0p313ss ( 811249 )

          I have never used J and know nothing about J

          Rest assured that those who have and do mostly run away screaming...

          *looks askance at those who like J*

          Those who do *NOT* run away screaming are probably likely to prefer developing Java in notepad, think perl is a good application framework and partake in usenet arguments about usable GIMP is.

          What? Me bitter?

          • GIMP is usable now. The older interface was a mess, but its not as bad anymore. I'm not sure when that changed like with version 2.0 maybe? Take a look at cinepaint ( the fork of gimp for movie editing formally know as FilmGIMP) it has the older interface. Its not even remotely usable.

            But everything else you mentioned holds true. Or at least it seems as if it could.
            • GIMP is usable now

              As a discriminating individual perhaps I can interest you the first part of our fascinating lecture series on the J language?

              • I don't know. Maybe I'll try J 2.0 if they add layers. For what its worth Gimp has its next generation engine available with an even better command line only interface. No more messy graphical controls to manipulate images with. Me, I wish they'd integrate it with a hex editor.
          • We're talking about ASCII APL, right? That's for lamers, real programmers use K.
              {{y@&x'y}[{&/x-l*_x%l:2_!x}]3_!x}50
            3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47
            that's primes < 50 (fairly naively, i'll admit)
    • Re:Hmmm.... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Friday September 05, 2008 @11:44AM (#24889005) Homepage

      Would you have preferred Visual Objective-J++.Net 3.0b MSDN Edition?

      The name is not bad. The main thing it does to me is imply Objective-C heritage which is what it is supposed to do. The J could be confused with Java though. Objective-JS would have cleared that up, but then it doesn't sound nearly as close to Objective-C.

      This is all the fault of that decision long ago to name JavaScript after Java for marketing reasons.

      I'd suggest Objective-ECMA, but that sounds like the test for a skin rash.

      PS: What's with the "nod" tags today?

  • by PrescriptionWarning ( 932687 ) on Friday September 05, 2008 @11:14AM (#24888617)
    they'll make yet another online spreadsheet application! I can hardly contain myself!
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by MightyYar ( 622222 )

      If it's as cool as their online presentation application, I'll actually be a tiny bit excited. The newest browsers actually run 280slides.com [280slides.com] pretty well. Safari is acceptable and Chrome actually screams.

      For the love of God, please don't run it in IE.

      • by aproposofwhat ( 1019098 ) on Friday September 05, 2008 @11:56AM (#24889173)

        For the love of God, please don't run it in IE.

        I just tried that, and it's hellishly slow in IE6, but runs like shit off a shovel in Firefox 3.

        I haven't tried Chrome yet, but I'm guessing the shovel in that case will be chrome as well.

        One thing that did piss me off was the "Download and Present" slide, which reminded me that Powerpoint 2007 format is "an ISO standard". While true, such statements are prone to making me quite irate :P

        • What?

          280Slides runs noticeably better for me in FF 3.0.1 than in Chrome. Thats with 2 tabs open in FF and 0 in Chrome.

      • It looks like they ripped all the icons off of Apple domain (the demo screenshot is even in a Safari browser)... I thought the idea was to create environments that looked native? Are they even allowed to use Apple's icons?
        • You're right - it does look ripped right from Apple. But I opened up Keynote and 280Slides side-by-side, and it is clear they've only copied the "look and feel", but they haven't copied any of the icons.

          I don't think they have any intention of making applications look "native". The applications will look exactly the same one every browser on every OS - at least in theory. Since they modeled it on OpenStep, it ends up looking very NeXT/Apple Cocoa.

    • they'll make yet another online spreadsheet application! I can hardly contain myself!

      Nay sayer! Besides, spreadsheets are so passe. They will be actually bring back Lotus Improv, a program that was ahead of its time.

      • by tyrione ( 134248 )

        they'll make yet another online spreadsheet application! I can hardly contain myself!

        Nay sayer! Besides, spreadsheets are so passe. They will be actually bring back Lotus Improv, a program that was ahead of its time.

        If only Numbers could duplicate what Improv on NeXTSTEP then it would be something truly to threaten Microsoft.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      they'll make yet another online spreadsheet application! I can hardly contain myself!

      Years and years ago, when I was working for a mainframe timeshare outfit and was teaching myself to program, one of the technicians said to me "Why do you want to do that? All the software anybody needs has already been written."

      You remind me a little of that guy.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by mweather ( 1089505 )
        You can't deny that every single spreadsheet is just a re-implementation of VisiCalc.
        • by Forbman ( 794277 )

          I don't think that Lotus Symphony was... it was WAY different than 1-2-3, Excel, QuattroPlus, et al...

          • by Forbman ( 794277 )

            Doh! It was Lotus Improv that was way ahead of its time...

          • by tyrione ( 134248 )

            I don't think that Lotus Symphony was... it was WAY different than 1-2-3, Excel, QuattroPlus, et al...

            It's Quattro Pro and it was far superior to Excel, especially for us traditional Engineering majors [ME/EE/ChemE, et.al].

        • Back in my day we had used tic tac toe boards for our spreadsheets, and we liked it. you whippersnappers and your visicalc.
        • What about VisiCalc. You're not saying it was really written by John Titor in a previous trip are you?

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Jack9 ( 11421 )

        This framework and language offers nothing new nor a compelling reason to use them. So your comparison is bad and your point is an attempt to look clever while failing to understand the wasted time and effort. I worked for years as a sysadmin, in a company with much more (experience and talent than these guys) while attempting to do what this framework is still trying to do. It takes about 1/10th the time and effort to create a BETTER flash app to anything that can be developed with these heavy JS framework

    • No joking. Could this "280slides" site be more of a ripoff of Powerpoint? I doubt it.

      Oh, and the default font is Comic Sans. That alone makes it worthy of derision.

  • Breakfast (Score:2, Funny)

    by alstor ( 587931 )
    OJ and Cappuccino...goes well with Java in a Bistro [wikipedia.org]? Who makes these names up? I guess it's better than having Caml [wikipedia.org] with Curry [wikipedia.org], or waking up with a Brainfuck [wikipedia.org].
  • by iluvcapra ( 782887 ) on Friday September 05, 2008 @12:29PM (#24889591)
    A reimplementation of the NextStep/Cocoa classes in JavaScript, and extremely close modeling of the Cocoa app development process. The way you write an Objective-J Cappucino application is almost identical to the way you develop an Objective-C Cocoa application.
    • Except HTML instead of NIBs
      • You know what, I'm wrong about that I think. I'm just going to shut up and keep reading.
        • You know what, I'm wrong about that I think. I'm just going to shut up and keep reading.

          Now where's the fun in that?

  • You know what they say: everything could be solved by adding another layer of abstraction...


    Oh and coffee too.
    • by jonadab ( 583620 )
      > You know what they say: everything could be solved by adding another layer of abstraction...

      Ah, well, in that case, maybe someone should be working on implementing a Perl interpreter in Objective-J...
  • ...or would a right-click context menu not complete 280's otherwise very useful Slides program?

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