Apple's new Objective-C to Javascript Bridge

Post by zackbloom » Wed, May 15, 2013, 6:30 PM UTC

jfb wrote: post #26

kybernetyk wrote: post #23

> 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…

Post by wwweston » Wed, May 15, 2013, 6:40 PM UTC

Millennium wrote: post #3

apike wrote: post #2

My guess is that this would be fast enough to build almost any Mac app and many iOS apps. The bigger question for me is, how gross would it be to deal with the "Objective-C-ness" of the Cocoa APIs through JavaScript?

That depends on the state of the bridge. Previous language bridges by Apple have generally bridged the gaps pretty well, with the main "Objective-C" relic being really, really long method names. That said, all of the bridges I've seen were to classical-OO languages. It is possible that Cocoa won't translate as well to prototypal-OO languages like JavaScript. It will be interesting to see how Apple navigates that para…

Post by drtse4 » Wed, May 15, 2013, 6:41 PM UTC

Arelius wrote: post #32

jfb wrote: post #26

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…

I actually like Javascript. Sure it has some warts. But it has an elegance I've really only seen in Javascript, Lua, and Lisp.

Post by joebeetee » Wed, May 15, 2013, 6:42 PM UTC

Post by jfb » Wed, May 15, 2013, 6:48 PM UTC

u2328 wrote: post #34

jfb wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remain skeptical.

Have you ever written any significant amount of JavaScript?