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Ask HN: How many of you Apple developers still use Objective C?

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Re: Ask HN: How many of you Apple developers still use Objective C?

#141

Post by jwells89 »

markemer wrote: post #124
jwells89 wrote: post #30

I do, but not often. Got my start in Objective-C back in the 2000s tinkering with OS X apps and used it at work for writing iOS apps from 2015-2017, but I embraced Swift pretty quickly (IIRC I started to take it seriously around 2.x). It required significant shift in mental models, but having so much more built into the language (needing fewer dependencies is never ever a bad thing, especially when using CocoaPods),…

Yeah that’s exactly my experience, except I bought my first Mac more around ‘03.

My first contact with Objective-C and Cocoa was somewhere around 2001 or 2002 when I decided to tinker with the contents of the developer disc included in the OS X retail box, and while I toyed with Interface Builder (which resembled REALBasic, which I’d previously been using) quite a lot I wouldn’t write anything functional for another couple of years.

Newbie material for Obj-C and Cocoa was truly slim pickings at that point, particularly if your local library was too small to carry those books and you couldn’t afford to buy them yourself. All I had to go off of was the odd blog post I’d run across and later on, patient AIM friends (who I am still grateful to) who’d explain things if I asked, so it took a while to become able to write anything significant.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you Apple developers still use Objective C?

#142

Post by svth »

Yes. I maintain some open source Mac apps in my spare time (and even develop new ones from time to time) using Objective-C. I've known and used this programming language for 20 years, and don't really see the point of investing in Swift given the way the Apple ecosystem has developed.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you Apple developers still use Objective C?

#143

Post by Grustaf »

lapcat wrote: post #136
Grustaf wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the fact that the platform vendor very clearly promotes Swift and makes most new APIs swift only a "practical reason"?

> Isn't the fact that the platform vendor very clearly promotes Swift No, the platform vendor promotes a lot of shit. I remember when they were heavily pushing Objective-C Garbage Collection. The fools who adopted it got burned when Apple removed GC entirely, killing their apps. I'm not suggesting that Apple will remove Swift, but it's a mistake to listen to Apple's hype and what Apple says. Their PR is not trustwort…

Shit or not, if new APIs require swift, it’s more of a practical question than an ideological one.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you Apple developers still use Objective C?

#144

Post by Grustaf »

lapcat wrote: post #135
Grustaf wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started using Swift right away in 2014 and worked on several large projects written in Swift 2, 3, 4. Of the three or four large migrations I had to perform, the worst one still took less than a day - unless your Swift 4 project is enormous, you should be able to migrate it to Swift 5 before lunch time, the differences are really minimal. Surely it's a good thing that a young language evolves, you can't improve wit…

Me, knowing my own code: "isn't easily replaceable without a significant rewrite" You, knowing absolutely nothing about my code: "you should be able to migrate it to Swift 5 before lunch time" (In this respect, yours is such a sterotypical HN comment. "I could build [whatever] over a weekend.") Moreover, even if your baseless, overconfident assertion were true, it's now about 6 hours until lunch time, and I'd rather…

The source breaking differences between swift 4 and 5 are very few, and quite mechanical. Most of them should be adequately handled by the migration assistant, did you try that? If it’s open source, I’m happy to take a look.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you Apple developers still use Objective C?

#145

Post by lapcat »

Grustaf wrote: post #143
lapcat wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't the fact that the platform vendor very clearly promotes Swift No, the platform vendor promotes a lot of shit. I remember when they were heavily pushing Objective-C Garbage Collection. The fools who adopted it got burned when Apple removed GC entirely, killing their apps. I'm not suggesting that Apple will remove Swift, but it's a mistake to listen to Apple's hype and what Apple says. Their PR is not trustwort…

Shit or not, if new APIs require swift, it’s more of a practical question than an ideological one.

> You seem motivated by ideology and hatred more than anything.

Please don't violate the HN guidelines. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Ask HN: How many of you Apple developers still use Objective C?

#146

Post by Grustaf »

cc101 wrote: post #139
Grustaf wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the fact that the platform vendor very clearly promotes Swift and makes most new APIs swift only a "practical reason"?

Practical means I can't proceed without changing languages. As long as I can proceed with objC, I will.

There are already many APIs you can’t use, and more or less all APIs in general are now easier to use in swift. But sure, you can still write apps in objc.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you Apple developers still use Objective C?

#147

Post by lapcat »

Grustaf wrote: post #144
lapcat wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me, knowing my own code: "isn't easily replaceable without a significant rewrite" You, knowing absolutely nothing about my code: "you should be able to migrate it to Swift 5 before lunch time" (In this respect, yours is such a sterotypical HN comment. "I could build [whatever] over a weekend.") Moreover, even if your baseless, overconfident assertion were true, it's now about 6 hours until lunch time, and I'd rather…

The source breaking differences between swift 4 and 5 are very few, and quite mechanical. Most of them should be adequately handled by the migration assistant, did you try that? If it’s open source, I’m happy to take a look.

I already know exactly what the issue is. I don't need your condescension.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you Apple developers still use Objective C?

#148

Post by Grustaf »

lapcat wrote: post #147
Grustaf wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The source breaking differences between swift 4 and 5 are very few, and quite mechanical. Most of them should be adequately handled by the migration assistant, did you try that? If it’s open source, I’m happy to take a look.

I already know exactly what the issue is. I don't need your condescension.

I offered help, not condescension. In my experience migrating to swift 5 has been exceptionally painless, so if you find it onerous I was offering to assist you.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you Apple developers still use Objective C?

#149

Post by lapcat »

Grustaf wrote: post #148
lapcat wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I already know exactly what the issue is. I don't need your condescension.

I offered help, not condescension. In my experience migrating to swift 5 has been exceptionally painless, so if you find it onerous I was offering to assist you.

It's condescension because you continue to refuse to believe what I'm saying, and you keep insisting that something difficult is easy.

Moreover, if I needed help with a Swift issue, I would go to my many friends and associates in the Apple developer community. In fact, I've discussed the issue with some members of the Apple Swift engineering team, and I have an open bug report that Apple hasn't addressed. The very last person in the world I would consult about a programming issue is a random, condescending HN replier.

Re: Ask HN: How many of you Apple developers still use Objective C?

#150

Post by Grustaf »

lapcat wrote: post #149
Grustaf wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I offered help, not condescension. In my experience migrating to swift 5 has been exceptionally painless, so if you find it onerous I was offering to assist you.

It's condescension because you continue to refuse to believe what I'm saying, and you keep insisting that something difficult is easy. Moreover, if I needed help with a Swift issue, I would go to my many friends and associates in the Apple developer community. In fact, I've discussed the issue with some members of the Apple Swift engineering team, and I have an open bug report that Apple hasn't addressed. The very la…

I don't doubt that you find it difficult, I am just saying that I never had any problems migrating to Swift 5. That's why I offered help, and because I am genuinely curious what it was that you found so overwhelming.
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