Cocoa Bindings (Score 1)

Everyone here has really done a very good job of talking about the pluses of Obj-C, Obj-C++, XCode, and so on. But nobody has yet (sorry if I missed someone on this) talked about the ease of use of Interface Builder, the GUI builder that comes along side XCode. And even more interesting for an application developer would be Cocoa Bindings.

For Application development, Cocoa bindings allows you to implement the model-view-controller paradigm without writing much, in some cases any, controller code because Apple has already done it. Check out Delicious Monster's app Delicious Library that was written largley (maybe totally, as I've also heard) using Cocoa Bindings.

Cocoa Bindings will be found in Interface Builder under the Bindings tab on the Inspector window. When you fire up a Cocoa app in XCode, you will have a NIB (NeXT Interface Builder) file, or two. Selecting and opening those files will take you where you need to go.

In Interface Builder 2.5, which is freely included in Tiger, they have enhanced Cocoa Bindings since bindings were introduced in Oct. 2003. And, if you don't like accessing bindings in the UI app Interface Builder, you can always code it in directly through the use of key-value-coding and key-value-observing.

If you're writing an app, one of the things that Cocoa Bindings does is get you head out of the code and into the Interface. I have found that, in making the interface first, I actually don't need some of the routines I thought I would need. Better yet, by not having to write and debug allot of controller code, my dev cycle time is allot shorter than it otherwise would be.

I don't program in Windows. But my Windows friends tell me that there is nothing like Cocoa Bindings on the Windows side. I think you'll like what you see.

Good luck! I think you'll have as much fun as I've had.