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Made myself learn it back when the AppStore was first released and the downsides are mostly related to the strange syntax and strange memory management model. I

Made myself learn it back when the AppStore was first released and the downsides are mostly related to the strange syntax and strange memory management model. It definitely has some good features and I do like the verbose style of inline naming (which is great for auto-documenting) but the downsides far outweigh the upsides. Java as a competitor is just a much easier language to read and write, though I would not say it is a better language. It gained widespread adoption because of that ease of use and ability to run on so many platforms. Whether you agree or not, C++ is perceived as a better language and is definitely better supported across multiple platforms. As an example, making an App that shares code on both iOS and Android is impossible without the Native C++ bridge on both. So despite the failings of the language (of which there are many), it really comes down to portability. This is why Swift is such an interesting experiment to me. As a language it is pretty good, very modern and easy to understand (though not super expressive or powerful), but, the thought of using it for both Android and iOS development is actually very appealing to me.

tosseraccount 11y ago
Just a clarification. I think the interface can be even "lower" than C++ ... C interface to iOS: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10289890/how-to-write-ios-app-purely-in-c http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10289890/how-to-write-ios... C programs can access Android's JNI ( http://developer.android.com/ndk/samples/sample_hellojni.html http://developer.android.com/ndk/samples/sample_hellojni.htm... ).
runn1ng 11y ago
Interesting. The syntax and the memory management is something I liked almost immediately, even when it's totally alien to other languages. Once I got it, I wondered why are not other languages cool like this. And then I never used it again in real life (since back then nobody had Apple, and then I moved to javascript...)

tosseraccount 11y ago

Just a clarification. I think the interface can be even "lower" than C++ ... C interface to iOS: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10289890/how-to-write-ios-app-purely-in-c http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10289890/how-to-write-ios... C programs can access Android's JNI ( http://developer.android.com/ndk/samples/sample_hellojni.html http://developer.android.com/ndk/samples/sample_hellojni.htm... ).

runn1ng 11y ago

Interesting. The syntax and the memory management is something I liked almost immediately, even when it's totally alien to other languages. Once I got it, I wondered why are not other languages cool like this. And then I never used it again in real life (since back then nobody had Apple, and then I moved to javascript...)