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> Apple could convert its entire Objective-C code base to Swift if they wanted. They certainly have the resources. The amount of liquid assets they own is stagg

by JamilD 10y ago

> Apple could convert its entire Objective-C code base to Swift if they wanted. They certainly have the resources. The amount of liquid assets they own is staggering, of a size unprecedented in history. Nevertheless, their current corporate culture suggests they cannot or will not perform this conversion. But why? This would be an incredible waste of time and resources, to rewrite perfectly functional and working code. Rewrite it when you need to. Bloomberg still has 25m lines of FORTRAN [0] — there's no need to rewrite code when it works fine already. [0] https://etrading.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/25-million-lines-of-fortran/ https://etrading.wordpress.com/2006/06/01/25-million-lines-o...

bangonkeyboard 10y ago
> But why? This would be an incredible waste of time and resources, to rewrite perfectly functional and working code. Rewrite it when you need to. The functional mDNSResponder was rewritten and replaced with discoveryd, causing networking issues for millions of users. The popular Final Cut Pro was rewritten with FCPX, shedding many of its features and most of its userbase. The powerful and flexible QuickTime application and framework were rewritten and replaced with QTX, losing almost all of their functionality in the process. syslog(1) was deprecated and replaced with log(1), a more verbose and difficult to use tool, for no discernible reason. Throwing away working code and rewriting it, of late most often for the worse, is something of a habit at Apple.
- zeveb 10y ago
  The perfectly reliable, predictable & functional headphone jack was replaced with a less-reliable, less-predictable & hence less-functional wireless headphone connexion too. C.f. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7795564?start=0&tstart=0 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7795564?start=0&tstart=...
- astrange 10y ago
  > syslog(1) was deprecated and replaced with log(1), a more verbose and difficult to use tool, for no discernible reason. The new log store contains (or tries to) every old file in /var/log and every log-level flag in the system, so you can search them all in one timeline. It also improves privacy because all the %@ formats can be censored after a short time.

by JamilD 10y ago

bangonkeyboard 10y ago

> But why? This would be an incredible waste of time and resources, to rewrite perfectly functional and working code. Rewrite it when you need to. The functional mDNSResponder was rewritten and replaced with discoveryd, causing networking issues for millions of users. The popular Final Cut Pro was rewritten with FCPX, shedding many of its features and most of its userbase. The powerful and flexible QuickTime application and framework were rewritten and replaced with QTX, losing almost all of their functionality in the process. syslog(1) was deprecated and replaced with log(1), a more verbose and difficult to use tool, for no discernible reason. Throwing away working code and rewriting it, of late most often for the worse, is something of a habit at Apple.

zeveb 10y ago
The perfectly reliable, predictable & functional headphone jack was replaced with a less-reliable, less-predictable & hence less-functional wireless headphone connexion too. C.f. https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7795564?start=0&tstart=0 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7795564?start=0&tstart=...
astrange 10y ago
> syslog(1) was deprecated and replaced with log(1), a more verbose and difficult to use tool, for no discernible reason. The new log store contains (or tries to) every old file in /var/log and every log-level flag in the system, so you can search them all in one timeline. It also improves privacy because all the %@ formats can be censored after a short time.