61–70 of 110 posts
So with this marriage of Objective-C and JavaScript: How much longer until we can develop native applications without Objective-C entirely? A polygot/trans compiler for xcode would make me melt.
> How much longer until we can develop native applications without Objective-C entirely? You already can -- Lisp: Nu Ruby: MacRuby/RubyMotion Basic: Objective-Basic
Lua: LuaCocoa, LuaWax, TLC
JavaScript: JSCocoa
Perl: CamelBones
This is how most of the other full feature bridges work, PyObjC, RubyCocoa/MacRuby, LuaCocoa. Otherwise you are hamstrung anytime you need to deal with something like a C struct (e.g. NSPoint).
> 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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wait, don't you remember Steve's original announcement about the great development opportunities on iPhone, where you could use HTML and Javascript? You won't be able to use undocumented APIs because you won't be able to get to them.
I was working on software for the phone at the time, so, yeah.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Also, people at Apple like Objective-C and its Smalltalk influences. For those of us who've been in the NeXT/Apple ecosystem a long time, it's clear that employees at Apple see Ruby as more interesting than say Javascript because of the Smalltalk influences. If any shift were to occur, money is on Ruby. But Apple likes Objective-C and no shift seems likely and we also saw what happened with MacRuby and the author lea…
And they've invested a lot in the tooling and environment. It's not like they're just running a stock gcc toolchain; they've put a lot of very smart people on very hard problems in the language space.
They were able to solve this in C by inventing Blocks and GCD.
That seems like an enormous leap of speculation.
> 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…
So with this marriage of Objective-C and JavaScript: How much longer until we can develop native applications without Objective-C entirely? A polygot/trans compiler for xcode would make me melt.
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…
> 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…
Funny. I've sometimes similarly speculated in the past that the set of developers who (a) struggle with JavaScript as a tool for in-browser apps and (b) would actually be genuinely productive with some other dynamic scripting language (Ruby, Python, CoffeeScript) in the same context is pretty small too.
But the truth is probably that whether or not someone can develop non-trivial software with any roughly equivalent language is mostly a function of available time to ramp up vs spend on other things. So, sure, Obj C and JS are close enough that anybody who can develop non-trivial software in one can probably do it in the other... but it's still going to be a time investment while you learn how things are done in the language and various associated APIs.
I don't know if Apple particularly cares if they're pulling in more developers. If they do, though, adding another language that many developers already know makes sense. It reduces the friction involved.
> And, if Apple were to switch, why would they pick a language as shitty as Javascript?
On top of the widespread at-least-shallow familiarity, not everyone shares this opinion.
Also, this is unlikely to be a "switch." It's more likely to be a gateway.