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

Post by tarentel » Tue, Feb 20, 2024, 4:36 PM UTC

Ragnarork wrote: post #37

lapcat wrote: post #17

I use Objective-C exclusively (no Swift) in my App Store apps. I wrote a Swift app for a hobby/free project a few years ago and regretted it. They changed the language and deprecated some of my code, which isn't easily replaceable without a significant rewrite. The project now compiles only in Swift 4 and will die when Swift 4 support is removed from Xcode. I see no reason to use Swift. The compiler is slower and bug…

> C interoperablity, while it exists in Swift, can be very painful Interesting, that hasn't been my experience. I'm curious, what have you ran into that was painful?

Post by FanaHOVA » Tue, Feb 20, 2024, 4:41 PM UTC

tarentel wrote: post #41

Ragnarork wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> C interoperablity, while it exists in Swift, can be very painful Interesting, that hasn't been my experience. I'm curious, what have you ran into that was painful?

I'm not op and it's been many years since I tried but back in the early days of Swift interop with C worked great until it didn't and it was very difficult to figure out what was going on because the debugger might as well have not existed.

Post by lapcat » Tue, Feb 20, 2024, 4:43 PM UTC

Ragnarork wrote: post #37

lapcat wrote: post #17

I use Objective-C exclusively (no Swift) in my App Store apps. I wrote a Swift app for a hobby/free project a few years ago and regretted it. They changed the language and deprecated some of my code, which isn't easily replaceable without a significant rewrite. The project now compiles only in Swift 4 and will die when Swift 4 support is removed from Xcode. I see no reason to use Swift. The compiler is slower and bug…

> C interoperablity, while it exists in Swift, can be very painful Interesting, that hasn't been my experience. I'm curious, what have you ran into that was painful?

Post by tarentel » Tue, Feb 20, 2024, 4:45 PM UTC

FanaHOVA wrote: post #43

tarentel wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not op and it's been many years since I tried but back in the early days of Swift interop with C worked great until it didn't and it was very difficult to figure out what was going on because the debugger might as well have not existed.

Not aimed at you particularly, but I've noticed more and more of the technical discussion on HN turn into "I don't really use it, but here's my many years old experience / non-user observation", which is mostly just confusing to people trying to leadn. You don't need to justify op with old anecdotes, people want to know what the issues are today, if any. At least that's what makes this website valuable for me.

Post by steviedotboston » Tue, Feb 20, 2024, 4:47 PM UTC

cturner wrote: post #44

eddieh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Later versions of WebObjects used Java.

Does anyone have an ISO image of WO 4.5? Apple are giving away WO 5 (java only) via a dmg on their website, so I doubt they would mind.