Lock-in? This argument - which we've heard before - makes the assumption that a programmer can only know one language at a time.
I get that some folks are fearful of change. You're in the wrong industry, then.
Swift, and why it hurts you (from an GNUStep developer)
21–30 of 60 posts
Re: Swift, and why it hurts you (from an GNUStep developer)
#22How is this getting upvotes? His main argument is that it locks you into a certain platform. So did Objective C. Being that a lot of people who will pick up swift will be Objective C developers who were already locked in, I don't see the issue here.
You can write Objective C on Linux.
Yet the argument is pretty much moot since the Obj-C you write for iOS apps is locked to iOS/OSX because of Cocoa. In that regard nothing changes for developers of these platforms - they just have one more language choice now.
Re: Swift, and why it hurts you (from an GNUStep developer)
#23I disagree on the locking-in argument. I mean if you decide to program for iOS, you use Swift or Objective C, just as you would use Java to program for Android. Does the Android community lock developers in by making you use Java? Me thinks not.
And in the greater sense, a good developer shouldn't be defined by one programming language, thus the locking-in argument is a bit ridiculous.
Re: Swift, and why it hurts you (from an GNUStep developer)
#24Do we even know what license Swift is under yet? I thought we were still waiting for the definitive word from Apple.
I'd be very surprised if it turned out to be under a non-open license and would see it as a hostile move by Apple. If that was the case then I too would be rooting for it to whither and die.
Re: Swift, and why it hurts you (from an GNUStep developer)
#25I'm not sure why Swift is controversial. Objective-C was all but lock in to Apple's ecosystem. If you want cross platform there are other options. Why shouldn't Apple try to optimise development for their ecosystem? Playgrounds are pretty impressive, as is the interoperability with Objective C e.g. dynamic translation between Objective C and Swift. I wish Microsoft had made it easier to mix and match F# with C#. Swif…
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Re: Swift, and why it hurts you (from an GNUStep developer)
#26[deleted]
Your answer appears to be for another post; here the post is about Swift being closed-source and tight to the Apple ecosystem, not about being compared to another language.
Re: Swift, and why it hurts you (from an GNUStep developer)
#27And developing in Obj C makes it so much easier to move your code to Android? I don't get it..
You can write the core of the program in C/C++ and just use Obj-C to interface with it. I imagine you will be able to do the same with Swift.
Re: Swift, and why it hurts you (from an GNUStep developer)
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the problem is that Swift has a proprietary license and Objective C doesn't. I actually think this is likely to be the death of Swift in a completely different way; that of community support and tooling. It's much easier and more fun to write libraries, port to different platforms, and optimise compilers and runtime on open platforms. Flash suffered from this problem, Silverlight suffered from this problem, R…
C#'s implementation was closed source and tied to a totally novel (at the time) API suite in .NET. Swift has the advantage that it's tied to already known APIs, and that it can call into C/ObjC code, and they can call into Swift. At this stage it's probably too early to say whether Apple will or will not open source their Swift implementation. Again, pointing to a successful proprietary language, C# didn't have an op…
Indeed, source code availability of the compiler implementation and accompanying infrastructure doesn't really matter. It takes time but it could be re-implemented from specs.
The problem with C# and .NET is (was) that they are patent-encumbered and that's the real game stopper. It took quite a long time and a lot of debate on .NET suitability for a Free Software movement to settle that matters somehow (recent releases under Apache license seem to fix many issues, though, although that still needs a statement from FSF's lawyers).
I'm unaware about Swift relationship to software patents. Does anyone know?
Re: Swift, and why it hurts you (from an GNUStep developer)
#29Will Swift be open source? That's the core question. In the 2000's, Flash was gaining a ton of popularity on the web, and Macromedia was recently bought by Adobe. They had just developed a new programming language, ActionScript, which was dynamic and object-oriented and offered an interactive developer playground. For early web developers like me, it was seductive and simple and more powerful than other state-of-the-…
Flash dominated the Web more than Internet Explorer (even at IE's pinnacle). Somewhere in the mid 90% of visitors had Flash installed at it's peak.
Open standards did not beat Flash. A bigger proprietary platform bully sent Flash to it's doom - Apple's iOS. Adobe's Flash was vulnerable because it had to seek Apple's blessing to be part of Apple's platform, and they were spurned.
This is the lesson of being a sharecropper - even a massive proprietary-source company, Adobe, are powerless when the platform owner enforces it's control. https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2003/07/12/WebsThePl...
Yes, open standards win in the long run, after Apple have profited significantly from the closed approach they are taking now. At which point it's a meaningless victory.
The point of the article is, be aware you are just a sharecropper, and working on Apple's lands for as long as it's in Apple's interest. And Apple owes you nothing for all your hard efforts, it will change the environment for it's own corporate interests. And you, the developer, are mere insignificant collateral damage. Remember that Steve Jobs killed Flash. And there was nothing Adobe could do to avoid or mitigate it.
Current iOS developers have already accepted this, willingly or unknowingly. It's the new folk who are attracted by the new shiny thing, need to be aware of the consequences of working on an Apple controlled platform.
Re: Swift, and why it hurts you (from an GNUStep developer)
#30Will Swift be open source? That's the core question. In the 2000's, Flash was gaining a ton of popularity on the web, and Macromedia was recently bought by Adobe. They had just developed a new programming language, ActionScript, which was dynamic and object-oriented and offered an interactive developer playground. For early web developers like me, it was seductive and simple and more powerful than other state-of-the-…
ActionScript 3 was open source.
- It was based upon ECMAScript 4.
- The ActionScript code was open source, and the actual reference code for ECMAScript 4.
- The JIT runtime of ActionScript 3 was open sourced (Tamarin) and "donated" to Mozilla to use as the basis for a faster JS runtime.
Also, your comparison of Flash with Apple's Cocoa/OS platform frankly makes no sense. The situation is vastly different. Swift is in exactly the same position as Objective-C. It's under no greater threat to disappear than Objective-C is.