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On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J

cappuccino.org

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Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J

#41

Post by tlrobinson »

volida wrote: post #39
shaunxcode wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you NOT want to redefine syntax if that new definition could make you dramatically more productive and or your code more readable? Sure if you are working on a large project for a large company (or even a large open source project) of course you want to make sure your code can be understood/maintained by johnny random but when you are talking about your journeyman type project - why would you compromise - a…

Well as the article pointed out Objective-C is supposed to be a better C. Do you see anyone who knows C care about this Objective-C? Obviously the original is around now for almost 40 years.

I wouldn't say Objective-C is supposed to be "a better C", just different, and better. They're quite different (besides the obvious fact that Objective-C is indeed a superset of C). C is a statically typed procedural language while Objective-C is a very dynamic object oriented language with optional static typing.

It's really quite elegant if you think about it. It's a highly dynamic language that was designed more than 20 years ago and is still very relevant today as the platform of choice for developing nearly all Mac OS X and iPhone apps. As far as dynamic languages go it's very fast since it's compiled. It integrates seamlessly with C (and even C++).

Just because you don't know or care about Objective-C doesn't mean there aren't plenty of people who do. I regularly see articles about Objective-C on the front page of Hacker News, Reddit, etc.

Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J

#42

Post by [deleted] »

jorgeortiz85 wrote: post #13
drwh0 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And again, since Objective-J is a proper superset of JavaScript really? what can it do that js can't do?

Read his first sentence again: "There is also the issue that implementing things like method_missing and import are prohibitively difficult without new syntax."

[deleted]

Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J

#43

Post by volida »

tlrobinson wrote: post #41
volida wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well as the article pointed out Objective-C is supposed to be a better C. Do you see anyone who knows C care about this Objective-C? Obviously the original is around now for almost 40 years.

I wouldn't say Objective-C is supposed to be "a better C ", just different, and better. They're quite different (besides the obvious fact that Objective-C is indeed a superset of C). C is a statically typed procedural language while Objective-C is a very dynamic object oriented language with optional static typing. It's really quite elegant if you think about it. It's a highly dynamic language that was designed more…

I didn't dispute the potential of Objective-C being better and more useful. What I said, is that although Objective-C may be better it never got more popular than the original.

Therefore although their effort with what they call Objective-J may be worthwhile, it's certain it will never go mainstream.

One significant reason? It runs toooo slow on IE. IF it ever gets fast, maybe more people will give it a shot.

Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J

#45

Post by boucher »

volida wrote: post #38
jimbokun wrote: post #19

This is very well thought out, and their reasoning was surprising to me. I knew the whole point about Objective-C choosing its syntax to allow it to be a compatible superset of C, but never applied the same reasoning to Objective-J and Javascript. Having said that, I still maintain some skepticism about using a single language for the entire webapp stack. I understand their desire, for example, to be able to swap out…

I agree, probably HTML+DOM+JS isn't going anywhere, at least for the next 5 years, so who cares about an SVG rendering engine today? Probably someone who is focused solving the wrong problem and burning money unnecessarily, because there are enough issues to handle with a web startup. I think this Objective-J is the wrong thing.

Who said anybody was working on an SVG rendering engine? Also, SVG is now available in the latest release of every major browser, so it doesn't matter what else is around, the point is that SVG is now one option for building web apps.

What does burning money have to do with anything? Cappuccino is an open source project. 280 North is a 3 person company.

Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J

#46

Post by volida »

boucher wrote: post #45
volida wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, probably HTML+DOM+JS isn't going anywhere, at least for the next 5 years, so who cares about an SVG rendering engine today? Probably someone who is focused solving the wrong problem and burning money unnecessarily, because there are enough issues to handle with a web startup. I think this Objective-J is the wrong thing.

Who said anybody was working on an SVG rendering engine? Also, SVG is now available in the latest release of every major browser, so it doesn't matter what else is around, the point is that SVG is now one option for building web apps. What does burning money have to do with anything? Cappuccino is an open source project. 280 North is a 3 person company.

When you are building for the web you make some browser backward-compatibility choices. Their implementation in that case which is build to be backward-compatible suffers significantly for being really slow.

I would not consider SVG as an option or necessary except if you are a building an well targetted network app served over the web.

Burning "money" is valid when you can't afford it. For a startup that "money" is the effort. So it's more important for a group of 2 or 3 to solve real problems.

YouOS, a team of smart guys got busted for getting caught in wrong execution.

Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J

#47

Post by Tichy »

tlrobinson wrote: post #41
volida wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well as the article pointed out Objective-C is supposed to be a better C. Do you see anyone who knows C care about this Objective-C? Obviously the original is around now for almost 40 years.

I wouldn't say Objective-C is supposed to be "a better C ", just different, and better. They're quite different (besides the obvious fact that Objective-C is indeed a superset of C). C is a statically typed procedural language while Objective-C is a very dynamic object oriented language with optional static typing. It's really quite elegant if you think about it. It's a highly dynamic language that was designed more…

Hm, isn't it only relevant because Apple forces people to use it? If there was a public vote for the programming language for the iPhone, would people really vote for Objective-C?

Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J

#48

Post by poub »

As a graphic designer I can tell that if we could replace any transparent PNG with their bogus gamma by a simple SVG, it will make instantly any “traditional” web page more beautiful, richer yet simpler and faster. I see a big advantage to switch the rendering layer to SVG when appropriate and on the fly. And I don’t see Flash being an alternative for this. So Cappucino really kick ass for me. At the end of the day we’re still dealing with pixels. But with monitors at 200ppi or more, it’s not a viable option, we need to use vectors, proper mathematics and abstraction layers.

Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J

#49

Post by tlrobinson »

Tichy wrote: post #47
tlrobinson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't say Objective-C is supposed to be "a better C ", just different, and better. They're quite different (besides the obvious fact that Objective-C is indeed a superset of C). C is a statically typed procedural language while Objective-C is a very dynamic object oriented language with optional static typing. It's really quite elegant if you think about it. It's a highly dynamic language that was designed more…

Hm, isn't it only relevant because Apple forces people to use it? If there was a public vote for the programming language for the iPhone, would people really vote for Objective-C?

Perhaps, but if it were really that undesirable of a language would Apple have chosen it as their platform of choice?

And it's certainly not stopping people from writing apps. There's now more than 10,000 apps on the iPhone App Store alone.

Re: On Leaky Abstractions and Objective-J

#50

Post by shaunxcode »

Tichy wrote: post #40
shaunxcode wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you NOT want to redefine syntax if that new definition could make you dramatically more productive and or your code more readable? Sure if you are working on a large project for a large company (or even a large open source project) of course you want to make sure your code can be understood/maintained by johnny random but when you are talking about your journeyman type project - why would you compromise - a…

Not against changing syntax in general, but in the case of LISP, it seems hard to change it without messing it up. I guess I don't like more and more "special signs" (like @, [], , #) invading the code. I've witnessed it with Java where a lot of new syntax was introduced. The thing is, these are all new concepts adding to the complexity of the language (annotations, generics,...). I prefer to keep things simple.

Good point - there is definitely fundamentally beautiful and intrinsic about the balance and simplicity of lisp. Personally I find removing syntax (another way of changing it) to be an empowering project. My current project is to introduce a syntax for php which is something more along the lines of smalltalk meets lisp - the real trick here was removing syntax and making it more gramatically relevant if used at all.
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