5 ms·

Wow, going after Xamarin (prioritizing iPhone developers instead of Microsofties) and only asking for donations! This is a great find; thanks for the link.

by j_s 11y ago

mwcampbell 11y ago
The other language front-ends (C# and Oxygene, their Pascal-based language) are commercial products. IMO, making the Swift front-end free indefinitely wasn't a smart business move, because now any savvy developer will just use the Swift front-end and not have to pay anything.
- oblio 11y ago
  They could do what Qt does and charge for commercial addons. The Qt ones are pretty compelling: in-app purchases, for example. Plus I imagine that people using the other front ends are doing it for other reasons. C# and Pascal seem like enterprise moves (for the enterprises of >2005 and <2005).
philbarr 11y ago
Let's not forget RoboVM, which is free (with paid options): https://robovm.com/ https://robovm.com/ I've used this before and was amazed how well it worked, particularly with libgdx: https://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/ https://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/ Not affiliated with either, by the way.
- oblio 11y ago
  Have you by any chance used JavaFXPorts? http://docs.gluonhq.com/javafxports/ http://docs.gluonhq.com/javafxports/
  - philbarr 11y ago
    No I haven't I'm afraid. But it's definitely something to look at from the RoboVM world. Bit overloaded with work at the moment unfortunately. And just the use of the words JavaFX and iOS in the same sentence seems weird! More than happy to be proved wrong though....
- metachris 11y ago
  RoboVM is only free for the 30 days trial.
  - philbarr 11y ago
    They've changed that very recently then. It used to be free but you just didn't get interface builder support.
segmondy 11y ago
This is not going after xamarin, it's just a toy problem.
- mwcampbell 11y ago
  What makes the Elements compiler just a toy in your opinion?
  - ianlevesque 11y ago
    The biggest limitation I saw was no support for the .NET base class libraries at all, which not only makes for some strange looking C# but also rules out using any of the existing 3rd party .NET libraries out there. They market this as an advantage but I'm not convinced.
  - segmondy 11y ago
    What he demonstrated is basic cross compilation techniques. There is nothing new or novel about this. You are hardly going to be able to build a full future app with exclusive Swift for the android using that method without a lot of tears, sweat, blood and effort.

Wow, going after Xamarin (prioritizing iPhone developers instead of Microsofties) and only asking for donations! This is a great find; thanks for the link.

by j_s 11y ago

Wow, going after Xamarin (prioritizing iPhone developers instead of Microsofties) and only asking for donations! This is a great find; thanks for the link.

mwcampbell 11y ago

The other language front-ends (C# and Oxygene, their Pascal-based language) are commercial products. IMO, making the Swift front-end free indefinitely wasn't a smart business move, because now any savvy developer will just use the Swift front-end and not have to pay anything.

oblio 11y ago
They could do what Qt does and charge for commercial addons. The Qt ones are pretty compelling: in-app purchases, for example. Plus I imagine that people using the other front ends are doing it for other reasons. C# and Pascal seem like enterprise moves (for the enterprises of >2005 and <2005).

philbarr 11y ago

Let's not forget RoboVM, which is free (with paid options): https://robovm.com/ https://robovm.com/ I've used this before and was amazed how well it worked, particularly with libgdx: https://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/ https://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/ Not affiliated with either, by the way.

oblio 11y ago
Have you by any chance used JavaFXPorts? http://docs.gluonhq.com/javafxports/ http://docs.gluonhq.com/javafxports/
- philbarr 11y ago
  No I haven't I'm afraid. But it's definitely something to look at from the RoboVM world. Bit overloaded with work at the moment unfortunately. And just the use of the words JavaFX and iOS in the same sentence seems weird! More than happy to be proved wrong though....
metachris 11y ago
RoboVM is only free for the 30 days trial.
- philbarr 11y ago
  They've changed that very recently then. It used to be free but you just didn't get interface builder support.

segmondy 11y ago

This is not going after xamarin, it's just a toy problem.

mwcampbell 11y ago
What makes the Elements compiler just a toy in your opinion?
- ianlevesque 11y ago
  The biggest limitation I saw was no support for the .NET base class libraries at all, which not only makes for some strange looking C# but also rules out using any of the existing 3rd party .NET libraries out there. They market this as an advantage but I'm not convinced.
- segmondy 11y ago
  What he demonstrated is basic cross compilation techniques. There is nothing new or novel about this. You are hardly going to be able to build a full future app with exclusive Swift for the android using that method without a lot of tears, sweat, blood and effort.