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Using a cross-compiler is like having a hammer and using it for nails, screws, thumbtacks etc. There is this myth that any programmer can learn lots of new lan

Using a cross-compiler is like having a hammer and using it for nails, screws, thumbtacks etc. There is this myth that any programmer can learn lots of new languages. That just is not true. Most programmers are good in just a few languages - the rest they are not good in.

tomh- 17y ago
It is true, a programmer can learn lots of new languages. It is mastering all the libraries and infrastructure which is time consuming. And you guys are all forgetting that writing large portions of your code in c++ is at the moment the most portable solution. It works on IPhone, IPad, Android NDK, PSP, Xbox, PS3, PC, Mac etc. The only thing you need to do is to hookup the platform specific gui code to your app logic.
- gte910h 17y ago
  1> Any compatibility layer is also forbidden by the agreement. So classes that make it easy to port (or c modules or whatever) would also be forbidden. They did more than ban flash here 2> C++ is a unreliable target on android still for fullscale development. C/C++ is really for computation heavy libraries, not end to end development. You're supposed to call into your C with JNI and do most of the app with Java
j_baker 17y ago
"Using a cross-compiler is like having a hammer and using it for nails, screws, thumbtacks etc." Fair enough. But Apple didn't just forbid cross compilers. They essentially forbade anything that wasn't originally written in C, C++, Objective-C, or javascript. "There is this myth that any programmer can learn lots of new languages. That just is not true. Most programmers are good in just a few languages - the rest they are not good in." I don't really see the relevance. Most programmers are good at a few languages, but those few languages are very different from developer to developer. Forcing every developer to choose from a limited subset of languages (especially the ones given) is just artificially limiting the developers who are willing to program on the iPhone. How many more developers would program on the iPhone if they could use C# or Python? I'd bet the number would be higher. And this is a good thing for the consumer.
scott_s 17y ago
I think you're misunderstanding the technical terms. Apple has not disallowed cross-compiling. That's the practice of compiling for architecture Y while developing on architecture X. What Apple has effectively disallowed is developers using an abstraction layer on top of C, C++ or Objective C. An analogous situation would be being told you can't write your program in C, you must write it directly in assembly.

tomh- 17y ago

It is true, a programmer can learn lots of new languages. It is mastering all the libraries and infrastructure which is time consuming. And you guys are all forgetting that writing large portions of your code in c++ is at the moment the most portable solution. It works on IPhone, IPad, Android NDK, PSP, Xbox, PS3, PC, Mac etc. The only thing you need to do is to hookup the platform specific gui code to your app logic.

gte910h 17y ago
1> Any compatibility layer is also forbidden by the agreement. So classes that make it easy to port (or c modules or whatever) would also be forbidden. They did more than ban flash here 2> C++ is a unreliable target on android still for fullscale development. C/C++ is really for computation heavy libraries, not end to end development. You're supposed to call into your C with JNI and do most of the app with Java

j_baker 17y ago

"Using a cross-compiler is like having a hammer and using it for nails, screws, thumbtacks etc." Fair enough. But Apple didn't just forbid cross compilers. They essentially forbade anything that wasn't originally written in C, C++, Objective-C, or javascript. "There is this myth that any programmer can learn lots of new languages. That just is not true. Most programmers are good in just a few languages - the rest they are not good in." I don't really see the relevance. Most programmers are good at a few languages, but those few languages are very different from developer to developer. Forcing every developer to choose from a limited subset of languages (especially the ones given) is just artificially limiting the developers who are willing to program on the iPhone. How many more developers would program on the iPhone if they could use C# or Python? I'd bet the number would be higher. And this is a good thing for the consumer.

scott_s 17y ago

I think you're misunderstanding the technical terms. Apple has not disallowed cross-compiling. That's the practice of compiling for architecture Y while developing on architecture X. What Apple has effectively disallowed is developers using an abstraction layer on top of C, C++ or Objective C. An analogous situation would be being told you can't write your program in C, you must write it directly in assembly.