Hello, I develop software for some 25 years. After that time, linear-style programming got so burned in my brain, it is very hard for me to switch to objective programming.
I have read in Tutorials that Objective-C is somehow "backward compatible" with old style programs. Is it possible to use linear programming and minimize use of objective programming in Xcode? For example, can I call methods and properties as some kind of functions?
Objective-C was originally developed as a pre-processor macro expansion enhancement to vanilla C. Everything it did was converted by the pre-processor into C. So yes, you could (and I think still can) do it all with function calls.
But the syntax to do it is very, very ugly. And you'll need to do it a lot, to make calls to all the SDK APIs. You really, really really don't want to go that route.
Now, it's not that hard to write all your own logic in C or C++, and then just do the API calls in Obj-C. Apple used to have some pretty good examples on mixed programming, at least for Mac OS X. They would probably apply to the iPhone SDKs as well.
Try poking around on the Developer Connection website for examples.
ObjC is backward compatible in the sense that you can call regular C code from within your ObjC.
Depending on the type of app you're writing, you can possibly avoid a lot of the ObjC. But the UI Frameworks (where you get your standardized interfaces) are based on ObjC and you'll be pretty handicapped in this area if you don't learn it.
__________________
iPhoneApps: enLegion - When everyone needs to be in the same place, but isn't AutoWeb - Automate your web logins and browsing!