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The future is arriving- slowly. Hopefully soon we will be able to make the core of our apps cross-platform by leveraging languages like Javascript, and only resorting to platform-specific code for UI layers. Here's hoping.
The thing is: Why would they want to transform away? As it is now Obj-C is pretty sane. The memory management is now a non-brainer so that even people who come from managed languages can grasp it. GCD is great for concurrency. And using C and C++ based 3rd party libraries is trivial.
The existing developer base is fine with Obj-C.
So maybe Apple wants to attract new developers? But why now? If they really wanted to attract new developers to their platform they would have chosen a different language for the iPhone SDK back when they released it first. But nowadays Apple's platforms have more than enough developers.
Also: Why JavaScript? JS itself is a terrible language with many inconsistencies and is unfit for larger projects - which most native applications are. There are far better and saner languages to base a new SDK upon.
Thank god, obj-c is horrendous... I'm not sure what the point of using JS would be over something like MacRuby/RubyMotion...
> The most interesting possiblility would be that this is the start of Apple’s evolution away from Objective-C into promoting a higher-level language for their platform The thing is: Why would they want to transform away? As it is now Obj-C is pretty sane. The memory management is now a non-brainer so that even people who come from managed languages can grasp it. GCD is great for concurrency. And using C and C++ base…
GCD is amazing and I use it more than NSOperation for easy quick off stuff.
That being said, I can see how this would be useful for gamedevelopers who wanna keep their scripts in JS/CoffeeScript instead of LUA :-)
> The most interesting possiblility would be that this is the start of Apple’s evolution away from Objective-C into promoting a higher-level language for their platform The thing is: Why would they want to transform away? As it is now Obj-C is pretty sane. The memory management is now a non-brainer so that even people who come from managed languages can grasp it. GCD is great for concurrency. And using C and C++ base…
And, if Apple were to switch, why would they pick a language as shitty as Javascript?
> The most interesting possiblility would be that this is the start of Apple’s evolution away from Objective-C into promoting a higher-level language for their platform The thing is: Why would they want to transform away? As it is now Obj-C is pretty sane. The memory management is now a non-brainer so that even people who come from managed languages can grasp it. GCD is great for concurrency. And using C and C++ base…
Maybe I've just swallowed the Kool-Aid, but I don't see the putative benefits of Apple's switching platforms. I'm also not clear on how many people there are who a) can write non-trivial software and b) can't learn a C derivative language who c) would actually write software for Apple's platforms. It just seems like a pretty small set. And, if Apple were to switch, why would they pick a language as shitty as Javascri…
The future is arriving- slowly. Hopefully soon we will be able to make the core of our apps cross-platform by leveraging languages like Javascript, and only resorting to platform-specific code for UI layers. Here's hoping.
Uhm, why 'soon'? Just write the core of your application in C++ and marry said core with platform specific languages for UI code.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe I've just swallowed the Kool-Aid, but I don't see the putative benefits of Apple's switching platforms. I'm also not clear on how many people there are who a) can write non-trivial software and b) can't learn a C derivative language who c) would actually write software for Apple's platforms. It just seems like a pretty small set. And, if Apple were to switch, why would they pick a language as shitty as Javascri…
But it has Good Parts(tm)!
> The most interesting possiblility would be that this is the start of Apple’s evolution away from Objective-C into promoting a higher-level language for their platform The thing is: Why would they want to transform away? As it is now Obj-C is pretty sane. The memory management is now a non-brainer so that even people who come from managed languages can grasp it. GCD is great for concurrency. And using C and C++ base…
Because it's popular.