Herding Code 66: Brad Wilson and Scott Densmore on iPhone Development

Episode 66

What do Brad Wilson and Scott Densmore have in common?  They're expert .NET developers, a couple of Mac fanboys, and they're both joining the guys on this week's episode of Herding Code.  Listen in while Brad and, yet another, Scott talk about the Mac, Windows, and the ins and outs of iPhone development:

• In case you've never heard of them, Brad and Scott D introduce themselves and share their interest in the Mac and iPhone development.
• Brad and Scott D talk about Objective-C as it compares to other languages including SmallTalk, C, Ruby, Python, and C#. 
• In order to be a great Cocoa developer, do you need to be a good C developer?  Brad and Scot D discuss.
• The guys talk about pointers, memory management and the benefits of following language conventions.  Not to be a shill, but Brad notes the brilliance of P/Invoke.
• The guys talk through Interface Builder, Xcode, Blend, Visual Studio, the difference between Mac and Windows developer workflow, and the passion around UIs in the Mac world.
• Scott K asks about ADO.NET vs Core Data. Jokingly, he asks if there's even a way to save anything using Core Data.
• The group quickly discusses available charting APIs for Cocoa and Core Animation libraries.
• Brad and Scott D explain that Mac plists are sets of name/value pairs or bastardized xml and Jon asks for clarification on how Mac installations work under the hood.
• Kevin asks if MonoTouch is best for C# developers due to language familiarity, the benefits of the rich libraries, garbage collection and potential productivity gains.  Brad and Scott D agree that learning the CocoaTouch platform is most crucial. In comparison, one's language choice a insignificant. So, if one already knows Objective-C, is MonoTouch a waste of time? 
• The show starts winding down with a quick discussion on how MonoTouch may be providing views to run on Android, the status of Moonlight and the unbelievable pace in which the Mono team develops.
• The group leaves iPhone-land to talk about real-life work. Brad talks about the ASP.NET MVC 2.0 Template and Model Validation work he's been up to, and Scott D notes he's been working on bringing ASP.NET MVC applications the cloud - the Azure Cloud, that is.

Show Links:

• Brad Wilson's Blog
• Scott Densmore's Blog
• Xcode
• MonoTouch
• Cocoa Bootcamp
• Big Nerd Ranch
• Aaron Hillegass
• AppKit
• NeXTSTEP
• Wil Shipley
• Carbon
• Rory Blyth
• Matt Gallagher, Cocoa with Love
• Marcus S. Zarra and Matt Long, Cocoa Is My Girlfriend
• Core Data
• Miguel De Icaza
• Moonlight

Download / Listen:

Herding Code 66 - Brad Wilson and Scott Densmore on iPhone Development

Show notes compiled by Ben Griswold. Thanks!