5 ms·

This is unsavory in the extreme. I had been writing an iPhone app in Haskell, and now I have to can it? What the fuck? Fuck you, Apple! Blowhards. Hope you guy

by tumult 17y ago

This is unsavory in the extreme. I had been writing an iPhone app in Haskell, and now I have to can it? What the fuck? Fuck you, Apple! Blowhards. Hope you guys enjoy the mass exodus of decent developers from your dumbass platform with kiddie languages.

jrockway 17y ago
GHC has a C backend. Just claim that you wrote that code yourself. Problem solved.
- tumult 17y ago
  I don't want to invest months of my life, only to be told, "sorry, if you can't prove it's C, your app is rejected. Bye."
  - jrockway 17y ago
    Yeah, then stop supporting their hardware. If you just bend over in front of them, of course they're going to fuck you.
- chromatic 17y ago
  The sort of company that would restrict the original source language of applications in a developer agreement doesn't strike me as the sort of company that would laugh and applaud the linguistic cleverness necessary to justify adhering to the letter of the agreement and not the spirit.
- steveklabnik 17y ago
  It's being phased out in the next version.
  - sparky 17y ago
    In favor of an LLVM backend; LLVM, in turn, has a C backend :P
joubert 17y ago
Have you tried writing your Haskell-based app for Android? Or perhaps Windows Mobile? or Palm?
- tumult 17y ago
  Android requires use of the Dalvik VM. Native code cannot make API calls to create interfaces etc. WebOS is the same deal, must use JavaScript and their framework for a native interface (and WebOS is a dying platform.) Windows Mobile is garbage, maybe 7 will be better, but it's half a year away and likely Microsoft will just copy Apple blindly and ban languages other than C# and C++.
  - joubert 17y ago
    So, for iPhone/iPad development, you can use C, C++, Objective-C, or JavaScript (4 languages). But on the other platforms you are in reality limited (in practice) to one or two languages? I'm looking at you, Android and BlackBerry. (Windows and Palm don't really count, since nobody's writing for them).
    - toluju 17y ago
      This is hilarious. People have gotten Scala, Ruby, Python, Lua, and a whole host of other languages running on Android. At least check your damn facts before posting bullshit. http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/06/introducing-android-scripting.html http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/06/introducing-an...
      - joubert 17y ago
        Sorry for posting bullshit. Since I don't know much about Android, are there significant apps (in the Android Marketplace) that use some of these languages?
      - mkramlich 17y ago
        Between this iPhone dev license change, and your claim that folks have gotten Python apps running on Android, this is probably the final straw pushing me to jump to Android.
zefhous 17y ago
"your dumbass platform with kiddie languages." That's ironic. Objective-C, C, and C++ are kiddie languages? I seriously doubt that there will be any sort of exodus away from iPhone development because of this. Apple provides some awesome development tools, and they want developers to use them because they improve the quality of the applications that people write.
- tumult 17y ago
  Have you ever written software? You'd be surprised what isn't written in C or C++. I bet this clause disqualifies the majority of serious applications in the app store. Anything with a generated parser, for example, can now be rejected. Objective-C is definitely a kiddie language, it's highly dynamic and mostly suitable for creating a OO interface to lower-level code written in C, which is how almost all of OS X and Apple software works. I personally believe C is not suitable for writing large GUI applications in, and many people would agree. C++ is unwieldy and more difficult to map onto UIKit without it just ending up looking like C again. Apple is telling people, "write software like this, because we say so."
  - zefhous 17y ago
    My main problem with your comment was that in your anger you seemed to be acting pretty immaturely about the situation. I'm sorry for being harsh. Yes, I'm sure it sucks. Your project is collateral damage from Apple's efforts to thwart Adobe and other makeshift cross-platform efforts that generally create sub-par products. I'm not saying Apple's development tools are perfect or that I like Objective-C, but Apple makes it pretty easy to write great apps their way.
    - tumult 17y ago
      Easy is not always powerful or expressive.
      - catch23 17y ago
        ObjC is more expressive than you think. It has the same metaphors of duck typing that ruby/python/javascript have come to adopt. You can do mixins & monkey patching very easily with ObjC as well. I would say ObjC rates very well in terms of flexibility of development. ObjC is definitely more enjoyable than Java or C++ and just slightly less efficient than ruby/python. ObjC feels closer to ruby/smalltalk than it does to python. If I had my choice of language, I'd probably choose javascript or ruby, but ObjC comes close in second. Even if you hate Apple, you should consider looking at ObjC on GNUStep.
travisjeffery 17y ago
I agree with you; but don't hurt your argument by saying that C, C++ and Obj-C are kiddie languages.
- mkramlich 17y ago
  When he said 'kiddie' I interpreted his intent as saying there were insufficiently advanced or sophisticated. While on one hand I agree they are 'hardcore' languages (pointers, memory management, compiled, type declarations, header files, #includes, etc.) on the other there are more higher-level, more expressive, less ritualistic and verbose languages available today. I loved C and used it for many years, back when the alternatives were BASIC, Pascal, COBOL, Fortran, etc. but today when the alternatives are Python, Clojure, Haskell, etc. yes in some sense I consider C/C++/ObjC as 'kiddie' languages. Maybe 'paleo' languages would be a better term. C for OS development may still be a good choice but for applications? No way. With Apple's change to the dev license they are basically saying, "We only want you to use paleo languages. Put away your shiny modern toys and come back to the creaky past with us."

by tumult 17y ago

jrockway 17y ago

GHC has a C backend. Just claim that you wrote that code yourself. Problem solved.

tumult 17y ago
I don't want to invest months of my life, only to be told, "sorry, if you can't prove it's C, your app is rejected. Bye."
- jrockway 17y ago
  Yeah, then stop supporting their hardware. If you just bend over in front of them, of course they're going to fuck you.
chromatic 17y ago
The sort of company that would restrict the original source language of applications in a developer agreement doesn't strike me as the sort of company that would laugh and applaud the linguistic cleverness necessary to justify adhering to the letter of the agreement and not the spirit.
steveklabnik 17y ago
It's being phased out in the next version.
- sparky 17y ago
  In favor of an LLVM backend; LLVM, in turn, has a C backend :P

joubert 17y ago

Have you tried writing your Haskell-based app for Android? Or perhaps Windows Mobile? or Palm?

tumult 17y ago
Android requires use of the Dalvik VM. Native code cannot make API calls to create interfaces etc. WebOS is the same deal, must use JavaScript and their framework for a native interface (and WebOS is a dying platform.) Windows Mobile is garbage, maybe 7 will be better, but it's half a year away and likely Microsoft will just copy Apple blindly and ban languages other than C# and C++.
- joubert 17y ago
  So, for iPhone/iPad development, you can use C, C++, Objective-C, or JavaScript (4 languages). But on the other platforms you are in reality limited (in practice) to one or two languages? I'm looking at you, Android and BlackBerry. (Windows and Palm don't really count, since nobody's writing for them).
  - toluju 17y ago
    This is hilarious. People have gotten Scala, Ruby, Python, Lua, and a whole host of other languages running on Android. At least check your damn facts before posting bullshit. http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/06/introducing-android-scripting.html http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/06/introducing-an...
    - joubert 17y ago
      Sorry for posting bullshit. Since I don't know much about Android, are there significant apps (in the Android Marketplace) that use some of these languages?
    - mkramlich 17y ago
      Between this iPhone dev license change, and your claim that folks have gotten Python apps running on Android, this is probably the final straw pushing me to jump to Android.

zefhous 17y ago

"your dumbass platform with kiddie languages." That's ironic. Objective-C, C, and C++ are kiddie languages? I seriously doubt that there will be any sort of exodus away from iPhone development because of this. Apple provides some awesome development tools, and they want developers to use them because they improve the quality of the applications that people write.

tumult 17y ago
Have you ever written software? You'd be surprised what isn't written in C or C++. I bet this clause disqualifies the majority of serious applications in the app store. Anything with a generated parser, for example, can now be rejected. Objective-C is definitely a kiddie language, it's highly dynamic and mostly suitable for creating a OO interface to lower-level code written in C, which is how almost all of OS X and Apple software works. I personally believe C is not suitable for writing large GUI applications in, and many people would agree. C++ is unwieldy and more difficult to map onto UIKit without it just ending up looking like C again. Apple is telling people, "write software like this, because we say so."
- zefhous 17y ago
  My main problem with your comment was that in your anger you seemed to be acting pretty immaturely about the situation. I'm sorry for being harsh. Yes, I'm sure it sucks. Your project is collateral damage from Apple's efforts to thwart Adobe and other makeshift cross-platform efforts that generally create sub-par products. I'm not saying Apple's development tools are perfect or that I like Objective-C, but Apple makes it pretty easy to write great apps their way.
  - tumult 17y ago
    Easy is not always powerful or expressive.
    - catch23 17y ago
      ObjC is more expressive than you think. It has the same metaphors of duck typing that ruby/python/javascript have come to adopt. You can do mixins & monkey patching very easily with ObjC as well. I would say ObjC rates very well in terms of flexibility of development. ObjC is definitely more enjoyable than Java or C++ and just slightly less efficient than ruby/python. ObjC feels closer to ruby/smalltalk than it does to python. If I had my choice of language, I'd probably choose javascript or ruby, but ObjC comes close in second. Even if you hate Apple, you should consider looking at ObjC on GNUStep.

travisjeffery 17y ago

I agree with you; but don't hurt your argument by saying that C, C++ and Obj-C are kiddie languages.

mkramlich 17y ago
When he said 'kiddie' I interpreted his intent as saying there were insufficiently advanced or sophisticated. While on one hand I agree they are 'hardcore' languages (pointers, memory management, compiled, type declarations, header files, #includes, etc.) on the other there are more higher-level, more expressive, less ritualistic and verbose languages available today. I loved C and used it for many years, back when the alternatives were BASIC, Pascal, COBOL, Fortran, etc. but today when the alternatives are Python, Clojure, Haskell, etc. yes in some sense I consider C/C++/ObjC as 'kiddie' languages. Maybe 'paleo' languages would be a better term. C for OS development may still be a good choice but for applications? No way. With Apple's change to the dev license they are basically saying, "We only want you to use paleo languages. Put away your shiny modern toys and come back to the creaky past with us."