Cocoa: First Screens

Here's a lil' screenshot of the application nib. No logic behind it yet, but it's coming.

The application uses Core Data, though I've got to do some pre-filtering against it, so I can't just hook it straight to the GUI. Bummer.

For the first time, I'm really understanding the architecture of a well-constructed Cocoa application. It's actually pretty fun.

Maybe I'm just biased (okay, I know I'm biased), but it all seems to lay out better than your typical .NET application. The inheritance-model just makes sense. Delegate objects make sense. Notifications make sense. These things took me days to figure out in .NET 2.0. Here? About twenty minutes.

Or maybe I'm just purposely making .NET difficult so I have an excuse to stay in the Cocoa world.

Hey Readers! I'm sure some of you have experience in either the .NET or Cocoa worlds. What say you? Why do you develop with Cocoa? What have you developed?

One of the things which kind of scares me as I delve into these technologies is the job market. You never hear about people looking for Cocoa developers. While I'd like to believe it's because every Cocoa developer is just so happy with his job that he performs perfectly and never wants to leave, the Rational Me says, "No, it's because there isn't demand."

But then, the Optimist Me says, "Hey now. There are plenty of small Mac-soft shops around." And he's right. Right now, tons of highly-motivated, highly-passionate teams are creating small, specialized applications for the Mac.

Take, for example, Loopware. I'm sure David is tired of me asking him questions and annoying the hell out of him on AIM, but this is a one-man shop who caters to a specialized crowd of equally devoted users.

It's happening everywhere. Textmate is another perfect example. That's probably the coolest part about the 'Net. With millions of users, you only need a percentage of a percentage to stay afloat as a one-man developer.

Crazy.