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New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

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Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#431

Post by sketerpot »

drats wrote: post #260
api wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardest thing to me about ditching Mac would be that Apple is the only company capable of doing a user interface. ALL other user interfaces by ALL other vendors suck. For some reason, no human beings on the entire planet other than those that work at One Infinite Loop in Cupertino are capable of doing a UI.

This is a massive exaggeration. I went from OSX to Ubuntu and I am more productive on Ubuntu in interface terms. The dock is very silly and graphical when you have quicksilver or gnome-do. Chrome is a better browser and browser UI experience than Safari in my opinion (and lots of people like firefox and opera more). The Finder vs Nautilus differences aren't big enough really, there are pros and cons to each. Apple st…

For me, Apple's UI advantage comes from two things:

1. It's way the hell better than Windows. No competition here. Windows is horribly clunky, and if you disagree with me, try using both for a while.

2. It has less of a tendency to plunge you into pesky little technical details than Linux. I personally don't mind fiddling with a config file every now and then, and the more recent Ubuntu versions are getting surprisingly good about this, but Linux still demands more effort to get a good, productive environment going. And Flash support still sucks.

Of the two, I prefer Linux in terms of usability. I doubt most non-technical users would agree. (Chrome, though, is just unambiguously better than Safari in every way. I use both regularly and don't want to dislike either of them.)

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#432

Post by sketerpot »

wisty wrote: post #330
jrockway wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Emacs developer, I can tell you with 100% confidence that the C part of Emacs is utter crap. The good news is that there isn't very much of it. The rest of the software is buggier than it should be. My web browser has remotely-exploitable security holes. Random drivers in Linux randomly regress as the version number increases. OS X and Windows 7 crash for no reason, and don't support enough hardware. The only p…

Xmonad claims to be about 1000 lines of Haskell. I'd say that's equivalent to about 10-100k of C. It doesn't crash because it's simple, not because it's written in a good language. Well you'd probably have 100X as many bugs in a C program (it takes 10X as many LOC, and I bet bugs scale with N^2), so Haskell is a bit better, but language isn't as important as scope. Big programs have more bugs.

It's not just lines of code; Haskell's BDSM-oriented type system is often infuriating, but it's remarkably good at catching bugs at compile time. Haskell programs tend to have a surprisingly small bug rate once you can actually get the things to compile.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#434

Post by eru »

juasko wrote: post #400
eru wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what if I don't want to write in one of the languages mentioned?

Then don't, thank you!

Sure. But it seems silly from Apple to restrict all iPhone developers to a (very) short whitelist of languages.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#435

Post by jcl »

alex_c wrote: post #113

Welcoming explanations for how this is a good thing for Apple's end users.

The least cynical explanation -- and thus the one most likely to be put forward by Apple -- is that by banning cross-platform compatibility layers, developers are forced to focus expressly on the iPad/iPhone platform, which reduces the likelihood of platform-specific bugs and keeps the developer from cutting corners to remain platform-agnostic (such as introducing foreign UI conventions). Likewise, they can claim that by requiring C/C++ they ensure high performance and efficient use of resources, resulting in better a end-user experience.

A more cynical theory: Apple believes they have more than enough developers for their platform, and they need a way to raise the bar. Particularly, they need to limit the pile of me-too apps, and Flash's impending iPhone compatibility threatens to send nothing but.

The benefit to the user in this case is that they have less crap to wade through in the App Store. The harm to the user is that a highly desirable app does not get made for the Apple platform because the developer is put off. And that risk is spectacularly low: any popular app on another platform is quickly cloned, and any killer app that fails to materialize at all... well, the users would never know what they're missing. (The logic breaks down for expensive-to-develop apps, game franchises, and other forms of lock-in, but these cases are few; Apple can negotiate them on a case-by-case basis.)

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#436

Post by jasonlotito »

c00p3r wrote: post #306

I think this decision is also about preventing the virus and trojan hell like that on Windows platform and other "unauthorized" code to be spread on millions of devices. It is much easier and cheaper to examine and control such restricted binaries before releasing them on iTunes. About Flash, Java and other outdated WM-based crap - they are pragmatic. They don't need any WM to run apps on their hardware. Modern CPU i…

I don't know why you got voted down. I don't agree with Apple here, but you make a good point. However, assuming Apple is concerned about security here, it's clearly not the only issue.

Nanny Apple wants to dictate the media you take in. Trust me, if it could, it would restrict HTML. Open standards are only good if you control the standards. =)

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#437

Post by catch23 »

tumult wrote: post #317
zefhous wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My main problem with your comment was that in your anger you seemed to be acting pretty immaturely about the situation. I'm sorry for being harsh. Yes, I'm sure it sucks. Your project is collateral damage from Apple's efforts to thwart Adobe and other makeshift cross-platform efforts that generally create sub-par products. I'm not saying Apple's development tools are perfect or that I like Objective-C, but Apple make…

Easy is not always powerful or expressive.

ObjC is more expressive than you think. It has the same metaphors of duck typing that ruby/python/javascript have come to adopt. You can do mixins & monkey patching very easily with ObjC as well. I would say ObjC rates very well in terms of flexibility of development.

ObjC is definitely more enjoyable than Java or C++ and just slightly less efficient than ruby/python. ObjC feels closer to ruby/smalltalk than it does to python. If I had my choice of language, I'd probably choose javascript or ruby, but ObjC comes close in second.

Even if you hate Apple, you should consider looking at ObjC on GNUStep.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#438

Post by catch23 »

rimantas wrote: post #192
tumult wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This affects anything that isn't C, C++, or Objective-C. Pay attention.

Yes it does. My comment was about Flash however.

you're preaching to the choir already. I'm pretty sure we're all in agreement on how sucky the Flash runtime is already.

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#439

Post by bdotdub »

eru wrote: post #434
juasko wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then don't, thank you!

Sure. But it seems silly from Apple to restrict all iPhone developers to a (very) short whitelist of languages.

Howso? They've spent the money and the time to create a great platform. It seems well within their rights to dictate a lot of the rules around what goes on the platform they created.

And as mentioned above, they dont have a monopoly in the market so, from Apple's perspective, 'if you don't like it, there are other opportunities' ... developing for the bberry :)

Re: New iPhone Agreement Bans Flash-to-iPhone Compiler & Others

#440

Post by catch23 »

zhyder wrote: post #23

Oh man, just when I was impressed with what they're doing in iPhone OS 4.0, they throw this in. I was hoping to finally develop for the platform thanks to background services, but my moral objection is now at par with my profit motive.

um, what does morality have to do with this? Apple's rules are not immoral. It's their platform and they're not a monopoly. If you don't like it, choose a different one.
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