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Could Ruby be Apple's language and API future?

parveenkaler.com

11–20 of 80 posts

Re: Could Ruby be Apple's language and API future?

#11
post #3

This would be all kinds of awesome, but I think it's probably a dream. To leap from ObjC to Ruby would be a absolutely massive undertaking for them. That said, they've pulled off crazier shit before.

MacRuby has already reimplemented most of Ruby's classes on top of equivalent Cocoa ones (String Not to mention the ability to call existing APIs and the fact that C and MacRuby will both be running on LLVM—I think it's less crazy than it appears.

Re: Could Ruby be Apple's language and API future?

#12
post #10
post #6

I've heard people suggest this before, but Apple doesn't seem to feel the same way. Ruby (even MacRuby) is banned on the iPhone along with every other language that isn't C or Javascript. Apple plays things close to the chest, but banning a language that you intend to base the whole platform around just doesn't make sense. Syracusa isn't wrong that Objective-C is getting long in the tooth, but Apple has shown more in…

Apple is fortunate that they're the only ones they have to check with to change 3.3.1. When the hardware has gotten ample and the software is mature enough, I for one won't be surprised if we see revisions. Meanwhile, a blanket ban will accomplish their goals just fine (take your choice: blocking Adobe, preventing fragmentation, making developers choose single platforms, etc).

They could change 3.3.1, but they didn't have to blanket-ban Ruby to begin with — they made already have four languages they allow. The fact that Ruby was banned shows that they don't even place it on a level with C++, much less Objective-C.

On top of that, MacRuby was just starting efforts to target the iPhone when Apple banned it, leading the developers to throw their hands in the air and say, "Oh well, didn't really get far anyway." If Apple really wants Ruby on the iPhone, stopping its own people from working on the project doesn't make any sense.

Re: Could Ruby be Apple's language and API future?

#13
I can't really see Apple doing this, if for no other reason than Objective-C is something they can control, and Ruby isn't. If the core Ruby developers decide they want to add more features, change the language's underpinnings, etc. Apple's left to play catch-up. If Apple wants to add features, then they basically have to fork the language and hope their changes get merged in.

Apple's shown (and been shown) how much of a benefit it is to control your own destiny; even with Ruby being open-source, it's still an outside influence they have to work with or against. Objective-C, for all intents and purposes, is their language, one they can take in any direction they want.

Re: Could Ruby be Apple's language and API future?

#14
post #12
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is fortunate that they're the only ones they have to check with to change 3.3.1. When the hardware has gotten ample and the software is mature enough, I for one won't be surprised if we see revisions. Meanwhile, a blanket ban will accomplish their goals just fine (take your choice: blocking Adobe, preventing fragmentation, making developers choose single platforms, etc).

They could change 3.3.1, but they didn't have to blanket-ban Ruby to begin with — they made already have four languages they allow. The fact that Ruby was banned shows that they don't even place it on a level with C++, much less Objective-C. On top of that, MacRuby was just starting efforts to target the iPhone when Apple banned it, leading the developers to throw their hands in the air and say, "Oh well, didn't real…

Just remember that we're talking about a company that managed to migrate its entire product line to an entirely new processor with few people (inside and outside the company) really knowing until they unveiled the first demo machines.

Compared to that, adding a new programming language (that doesn't even affect their existing 3rd party applications) to a platform they own completely is child's play.

Re: Could Ruby be Apple's language and API future?

#15
I think there are two big reasons that Ruby isn't on the iPhone. For one, MacRuby is still in development and isn't stable yet. For another, the Objective-C GC isn't running on the iPhone, which is what MacRuby uses. As the project matures and the iPhone gets better hardware, I think Ruby will start to show up on it.

Re: Could Ruby be Apple's language and API future?

#16
This article seems very very speculative. For instance, I don't think the blocks implementation in ObjC is adequate as a full closure implementation. It certainly looks like Apple is trying to improve the language while continuing to remain "close to the metal" using C without the need for bridges.

Re: Could Ruby be Apple's language and API future?

#18
post #4
post #2

I dont see any concrete evidence that suggests Apples shift from Objective C in the linked article. Can you point to specific information that points to such a move. fyi pypy has a LLVM backend, as does haskell, I believe python is supported in Xcode too. Hence a similar article could have been written about Apple moving to python.

Apple is sponsoring the development of MacRuby. It's not sponsoring pypy or Haskell LLVM backends.

[deleted]

Re: Could Ruby be Apple's language and API future?

#20
post #12
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is fortunate that they're the only ones they have to check with to change 3.3.1. When the hardware has gotten ample and the software is mature enough, I for one won't be surprised if we see revisions. Meanwhile, a blanket ban will accomplish their goals just fine (take your choice: blocking Adobe, preventing fragmentation, making developers choose single platforms, etc).

They could change 3.3.1, but they didn't have to blanket-ban Ruby to begin with — they made already have four languages they allow. The fact that Ruby was banned shows that they don't even place it on a level with C++, much less Objective-C. On top of that, MacRuby was just starting efforts to target the iPhone when Apple banned it, leading the developers to throw their hands in the air and say, "Oh well, didn't real…

The ban is on using language implementations that don't ship either as compilers with the dev tools (C, Obj-C, C++) or as runtimes on the device (JS) without prior approval (plenty of people embed Lua, and Unity3D apps still get approved).

Apple is obviously planning to ship MacRuby with a future release of Mac OS X as a fully supported language implementation, possibly with 10.7 in 6-12 months. Perhaps they will do the same with iOS, but they've had other priorities.

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