I started playing with XCode, Objective-C and iPhone Application Development recently (which was about 3 days ago).
Some background on my skillset first.
I started out learning Pascal and Foxpro, and then proceed to C++ with Visual C++. Along the way I picked up VB, and then Java. Then I worked with Java professional for about 3 years, and then out came C# (within that 3 years), which I then decided to make a jump for it, but ended up with VB.Net and Visual Studio for about a year. And then I decided that Java had a better career opportunity back then. So it was back to Java and Eclipse for another 2+ years.
And this is where I am now. Which is to say that I am strongly comfortable with Java and Eclipse (but seriously, Eclipse is an excellent IDE).
During the time I read up on Ruby and Python, but resisted developing with them, blaming the lack of an IDE with the quality of Eclipse.
And now that I want to try out iPhone Application Development, I had to pick up Objective-C and XCode.
I started reading up on both topics. And with every read, Objective-C felt like an excellent language. Named parameter was a big plus for me. Categories were a good way to slice up code into separate files (much like .Net's extension methods). Other than that, much was the same as old time (to me). XCode itself was a good tool, with code completion support (though I have yet to read anything on refactoring, and not much books talk about unit testing though they are available online).
And then came the time of actual usage. I was confident that with my experience in C++ I could tame that Objective-C beast. And the tool did seem good.
I was wrong. Not on the account of Objective-C. That was pretty easy. I am a firm believer that language syntax are simply decorations. And so I had concentrated on honing the more important skills of writing clean code, design patterns, building stronger foundation. But development still take a while, because I was so used to Java. Coding in Objective-C requires some mindset changes. Recognizing new symbols.
XCode was a much bigger killer. Code completion works, but code 'suggestion' was a different key. I had to retrain my instincts. I have yet to figure out unit testing, but probably will complain when it get working, citing it as different and weird compared to Eclipse (but that is definitely due to my overly used to Eclipse, not because of XCode). Checking for compilation errors was different and had to get used to. And looking at the logs while debugging was... well just wonder why I had to switch my view in XCode. Perhaps there is a different project layout view (I was sure I read something on it), and I should try that.
So why so much pain? I became overly reliant on a single tool and language. And that is definitely a very dangerous thing. Regardless if you read up on different tools or languages, if one does not actually try using them, they will not be able to operate under different environment. And as developers, we MUST be as flexible as possible. One can never know what tools one might use in the future of their career. (I am currently cursing on using Visual Studio in Windows XP VM on my Mac... GRRRR).
And after years of using Java, a garbage collecting language, I had to revert back to a non-garbage collected language. More care is put into each line, and there is always a wondering thought on if I should release the memory of something returned from a system call, or not if I am returning them as return arguments. It takes some getting used to.
I probably should have tried out Ruby and Python more often, and C++ too, with a variety of tools. Life would be better.
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