Plaupius on 30 September 2008
| Soleron said: Mac OS X has all the disadvantages of not being Windows (doesn't run most games, for example) but few of the advantages of Linux (doesn't have a packaging system, not free, hardware tie-in, lack of good Java support, forced to use Objective-C, lack of kernel flexibility, lack of hardware support vs. Linux). |
While most of your points are valid, the bolded part simply is not. The OS X compiler is GCC, and happily compiles C, C++ as well as Objective-C. Sure, the high level libraries are written in Objective-C, so if you want to take advantage of those, you'll have to use Objective-C, but you're free to program in C or C++ if you so wish. And anyway, Objective-C is pretty simple to pick up.
As for Java support, sadly Apple themselves are (or Jobs at least) moving away from Java, but there's an open source project for producing a Java VM for OS X, so the possibility for support is there. Of course, it requires the users to download and install it, so it's not the same as being built in the OS, but it's better than nothing I suppose.
