31–40 of 93 posts
Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? One indicator would be that there would be ports of Objective-C to many platforms, is that the case?
Stats on popularity from TIOBE: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... (Obj-C now the 5th most popular and quickly rising)
I always wondered if that popularity is tied to Apple devices. I mean... are there projects using Obj-C out of an Apple context? Other sources: http://lang-index.sourceforge.net/ https://github.com/languages
Stats on popularity from TIOBE: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... (Obj-C now the 5th most popular and quickly rising)
I always wondered if that popularity is tied to Apple devices. I mean... are there projects using Obj-C out of an Apple context? Other sources: http://lang-index.sourceforge.net/ https://github.com/languages
It's the same as 12 years ago: just GNUStep and things in the GNUStep halo like Étoilé. Sony started a project to put GNUStep on mobile (SNAP) a few years ago and promptly dropped it.
> I always wondered if that popularity is tied to Apple devices.
There's no doubt about that.
Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? One indicator would be that there would be ports of Objective-C to many platforms, is that the case?
Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? One indicator would be that there would be ports of Objective-C to many platforms, is that the case?
Objective-C the language has always been extremely portable. Even pre-NeXT there were compilers/runtimes for Atari, Amiga, Mac, DOS/Windows, Unix, QNX, and probably a bunch of other systems I am not aware of. When NeXT shared their compiler patches and runtime (after some GPL-prodding), Objective-C became part of gcc and available on pretty much any supported platform, especially after the GNU-runtime delivered a por…
Is there some inherent feature of the language that would make it more portable than others?
Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? One indicator would be that there would be ports of Objective-C to many platforms, is that the case?
Objective-C the language has always been extremely portable. Even pre-NeXT there were compilers/runtimes for Atari, Amiga, Mac, DOS/Windows, Unix, QNX, and probably a bunch of other systems I am not aware of. When NeXT shared their compiler patches and runtime (after some GPL-prodding), Objective-C became part of gcc and available on pretty much any supported platform, especially after the GNU-runtime delivered a por…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Perhaps for J2ME development, but apart from that I'd say thousands of companies have individually decided to use Java. Apple is just one company that has decided to use Objective-C. Edit: I forgot about Android, but Java was "popular" before that - in fact Android probably uses Java because Java was popular...
> individually decided Languages aren't used in a vacuum, and the economics of them involve positive network externalities and switching costs, so 'individually' needs some qualification.
Of course there was the hype, the hope to find more developers, the idea that there should be only one language in the company and so on. (All wrong, imo...)
Maybe all those factors could be combined into a single one, "popularity" :-)
From what I have seen, Apple succeeds in part because they have a corporate culture that fosters good OO and good software architecture. Most companies through the early 2000's didn't have enough BS filtering capability to accomplish this. (Only the top 10% to 25% of shops had that, I would guess.)
Add to that technical capability, the actual ability to market and an understanding of UX/design, and you start to understand how they can execute so well.
Is Objective-C really popular now? I mean would people volunteer to use it, if they weren't forced by Apple? One indicator would be that there would be ports of Objective-C to many platforms, is that the case?
Also, can you assume that apps that even are in the Apple domain DO use Objective-C enough that it warrants calling the language "popular"? Or are we seeing apps written in another language with a bit of Objective-C to act as glue between the app and Cocoa/iOS?
Stats on popularity from TIOBE: http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.... (Obj-C now the 5th most popular and quickly rising)
I always wondered if that popularity is tied to Apple devices. I mean... are there projects using Obj-C out of an Apple context? Other sources: http://lang-index.sourceforge.net/ https://github.com/languages