Objective-S: architecture-oriented language based on Smalltalk and Objective-C • Hacker News Board

Re: Objective-S: architecture-oriented language based on Smalltalk and Objective-C

#11

Post by ardit33 » Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 10:31 PM UTC

Xeoncross wrote: post #3

I still remember my horror when I saw the pain of something as simple as string concatenation in Objective-C. The community literally has to write special micros to make joining a string palatable [1]. I salute the brave souls who made OSX/iOS apps before Swift. NSString *myString = @"Hello"; NSString *second = [myString stringByAppendingString:@" World"]; [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/510269/shortcuts-in-…

Agreed. But once you get some macros (or categories) then Objective-C becomes a great language.

Is both elegant and very powerful as it is has the perfect balance between a static and a dynamic language.

Swift on the other had is a language where wonks decided to throw every silly feature they thought off to the point that is becoming more complex than even Scala.

I wished Swift was just a modernized Objective-C with a normal non bracket syntax and some extra facilities that it was missing.

It is such a wasted opportunity

Re: Objective-S: architecture-oriented language based on Smalltalk and Objective-C

#12

Post by mpweiher » Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 10:31 PM UTC

zapzupnz wrote: post #4

mpweiher wrote: post #2

Oh. Sorry, the website is currently not in a very good state. Feel free to ask any questions here. Note: very pleased that the box serving the site is pretty consistently at less than 1% CPU during the HN hug of death.

I’m interested in this. What’s the developer experience like? Is there an LSP server to be able to use with VSCode?

While there is support for autocomplete in the Stsh framework (for the interactive shell, but you can use it independently), there is no LSP support yet.

May I ask what you would be interested in doing with it?

Re: Objective-S: architecture-oriented language based on Smalltalk and Objective-C

#13

Post by EddySchauHai » Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 10:34 PM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #9

munchler wrote: post #6

> By allowing general architectures, Objective-S is the first general purpose programming language. Really? I stopped reading at this spot, since this claim is so ridiculous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General-purpose_programming_la...

You might try reading further, because the claim is actually well-supported. Just because we call something "general purpose" doesn't mean it actually is.

If you can build Objective-S in a language then isn't the language that contains the set of Objective-S and other languages in theory more general purpose? I'm not sure I get the definition.

Re: Objective-S: architecture-oriented language based on Smalltalk and Objective-C

#14

Post by TazeTSchnitzel » Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 10:36 PM UTC

Xeoncross wrote: post #3

I still remember my horror when I saw the pain of something as simple as string concatenation in Objective-C. The community literally has to write special micros to make joining a string palatable [1]. I salute the brave souls who made OSX/iOS apps before Swift. NSString *myString = @"Hello"; NSString *second = [myString stringByAppendingString:@" World"]; [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/510269/shortcuts-in-…

  NSString *foo = [@"foo" stringByAppendingString:@"bar"];

It's not that bad.

Re: Objective-S: architecture-oriented language based on Smalltalk and Objective-C

#15

Post by aaaaaaaaaaab » Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 10:36 PM UTC

Xeoncross wrote: post #3

I still remember my horror when I saw the pain of something as simple as string concatenation in Objective-C. The community literally has to write special micros to make joining a string palatable [1]. I salute the brave souls who made OSX/iOS apps before Swift. NSString *myString = @"Hello"; NSString *second = [myString stringByAppendingString:@" World"]; [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/510269/shortcuts-in-…

Actually, I'm glad its a method with a long-ish name. Operator-overloaded string concatenation makes something that can ruin your performance look innocent.

Also, I've never heard of any serious iOS/macOS dev complaining about this.

Re: Objective-S: architecture-oriented language based on Smalltalk and Objective-C

#16

Post by KerrAvon » Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 10:38 PM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #9

munchler wrote: post #6

> By allowing general architectures, Objective-S is the first general purpose programming language. Really? I stopped reading at this spot, since this claim is so ridiculous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General-purpose_programming_la...

You might try reading further, because the claim is actually well-supported. Just because we call something "general purpose" doesn't mean it actually is.

I like what I've seen of Objective-S; I completely support and appreciate the thought you've put into it, but I don't think that's a great claim to make.

Implicit is the claim that C, Lisp, Modula-2 are not general purpose languages, which is ridiculous. You may not want to deal with C's various problems, and it may take pages and pages of code to do in C what one line of Objective-S could do, but doesn't mean it can't be done.

Re: Objective-S: architecture-oriented language based on Smalltalk and Objective-C

#17

Post by mpweiher » Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 10:42 PM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #11

Xeoncross wrote: post #3

I still remember my horror when I saw the pain of something as simple as string concatenation in Objective-C. The community literally has to write special micros to make joining a string palatable [1]. I salute the brave souls who made OSX/iOS apps before Swift. NSString *myString = @"Hello"; NSString *second = [myString stringByAppendingString:@" World"]; [1]: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/510269/shortcuts-in-…

Agreed. But once you get some macros (or categories) then Objective-C becomes a great language. Is both elegant and very powerful as it is has the perfect balance between a static and a dynamic language. Swift on the other had is a language where wonks decided to throw every silly feature they thought off to the point that is becoming more complex than even Scala. I wished Swift was just a modernized Objective-C with…

Agreed, and that's kind of where Objective-S started:

https://blog.metaobject.com/2019/12/the-4-stages-of-objectiv...

Re: Objective-S: architecture-oriented language based on Smalltalk and Objective-C

#18

Post by munchler » Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

mpweiher wrote: post #9

munchler wrote: post #6

> By allowing general architectures, Objective-S is the first general purpose programming language. Really? I stopped reading at this spot, since this claim is so ridiculous. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General-purpose_programming_la...

You might try reading further, because the claim is actually well-supported. Just because we call something "general purpose" doesn't mean it actually is.

I read the rest of the About page and didn't see anything supporting this claim. What makes Objective-S more general than other languages? If it's the four architecture "styles" listed, I'm pretty sure other languages can do the same:

* OO and Call/Return: Supported by every OO language.

* Pipes and Filters: Supported by every functional programming language.

* REST: Supported by many modern languages. (Go springs to mind as a typical example.)

* Implicit Invocation / Event Broadcast: Supported by many modern languages.

Re: Objective-S: architecture-oriented language based on Smalltalk and Objective-C

#19

Post by kelseyfrog » Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 10:46 PM UTC

brtknr wrote: post #7

My two pence: It’s not a very sexy name for a language compared to the competition.

I assumed it was an "objective" version of the S programming language[1], but it appears it is not.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_%28programming_language%29

Re: Objective-S: architecture-oriented language based on Smalltalk and Objective-C

#20

Post by aaaaaaaaaaab » Fri, Aug 12, 2022, 10:50 PM UTC

Marcel Weiher has been stubbornly treading his own path for more than a decade. As the iOS/macOS world moves towards Swift, he goes back to Smalltalk principles. As Apple introduces SwiftUI to appease the webdev crowd raised on React, he builds his own small and efficient GUI story.

I'm quite convinced he's onto something.