I happened across a fascinating interview with long-time Macintosh software developer Jonathan Wolfgang Von Rentzsch. In summing up his perspective on software development for Mac OS X, Rentzsch pointed out that, “Cocoa is simultaneously underrated and overrated. Underrated in that it really is the best application framework out there, single-platform nature, warts and all.” He continued:
Overrated in that Cocoa is just a framework. It’s a great one, sure. But your nontrivial app is guaranteed to hit something that Cocoa doesn’t handle, and that means you’re going to write code. And you’re going to have to know your problem domain backwards and forwards, and figure out how to extend Cocoa cleanly, which often involves exploratory coding.
Cocoa won’t do all your work for you—you’re still going to have to be a great programmer to write great software.
The complete interview is some good, in-depth reading for the technically inclined.