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We do, but, it's mostly because we were raised on it and have a lot of ingroup memes for discrediting other options - my company forcing me to work outside iOS

We do, but, it's mostly because we were raised on it and have a lot of ingroup memes for discrediting other options - my company forcing me to work outside iOS for the first time in several years was a real eye-opener. I don't think Apple developers have the experience to see how far behind SwiftUI is and how little chance there is of them catching up, and I don't think non-Apple developers have the experience to see there's very little 'special' to ObjC or Swift.

matthewmacleod 6y ago
Hmm, I don’t recognise this characterisation. I have been a web front-end specialist for quite some time, and have also developed large-scale native UIs for both macOS and iOS. My perspective would be that there is no clear winner. The Apple environment is absolutely _miles_ ahead of the web platform in several respects; the web offers greater flexibility that comes with a corresponding cost. I’d agree at least that platform-specific developers can often keep themselves far too isolated. They really should be making an effort to work cross-platform as much as possible, because learning about the different patterns and techniques used in different environments is an incredible force multiplier.
- pookieinc 6y ago
  As someone who is also a front end dev, can you share more? I’ve been getting into Swift development on my free nights, but between the horrendous Xcode IDE errors / lag and learning the ins and outs of a new strongly typed language, it makes me hug my vscode / js environment tighter to my chest
- anoncareer0212 6y ago
  Maybe I'm conflating 'web framework' with 'anything that compiles down to JS'? It's impossible for me to think of areas where iOS dev felt miles ahead, but I can imagine if I was writing JS I'd feel that way (I'm really into Flutter lately)
- wayneftw 6y ago
  > The Apple environment is absolutely _miles_ ahead of the web platform in several respects... Such as? In any case, I'd assume those miles are only gained on iOS where Apple has gimped the newer web APIs.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Accessibility? Consistency? Performance?
  - matthewmacleod 6y ago
    Such as? Picking some features I like entirely at random: libdispatch, Core Data, comprehensive accessibility support, SpriteKit, Core Video, ARKit… basically, there are lot of powerful and reasonably consistent APIs (with good performance) that really make a bunch of development much more tractable. Some of these can be replicated on the web platform; others can't. In any case, I'd assume those miles are only gained on iOS where Apple has gimped the newer web APIs. I'm sure you appreciate why that kind of attitude is a bit silly and serves to demonstrate the exact effect I was initially talking about.
    - anoncareer0212 6y ago
      There's no way you think Apple is miles ahead on async programming and ORMs, the iOS community has been clamoring for replacements for both for years and there's _plenty_ of web libraries for both. The rest looks like it's focused on graphics/stuff you wouldn't do on the web anyway - yes, the fact it's impossible on the web _means by definition Apple is miles ahead_, but claiming Apple is overall miles ahead on dev experience because of AR and video bitstream manipulation APIs is a bit blinkered, given very few developers get to use those APIs.
      - rabenfrass 6y ago
        We’d like a swift version of Core Data (a graph of objects), not a ORM. For async programming we have GCD and reactive libraries, async await is on master already, a design document is expected this month.
cglong 6y ago
I'd love to learn more. What technologies outside iOS have you used and what do they do better than SwiftUI?
- anoncareer0212 6y ago
  React Native, Android Java, Android Kotlin, Flutter, Jetpack Compose - Flutter is the runaway winner, in general - ARC looks like a mistake in retrospect - you trade 'GC overhead' for memory leaks - keeping autolayout _and_ absolute frames looks like a mistake: a significant portion of SwiftUI overhead is spent in autolayout - after working with Swift and _loving_ it between Swift 1 and 4, seeing the issues and watching Apple staff up and get more rigorous to solve them, stapling SwiftUI right now is unconsciable - it requires contorting the language spec and the slow speed removes the one benefit of all the other frameworks, hot reload on device. - Apple seems confused because they can _enumerate tractable work that would improve SwiftUI_, but the sum of that work is large enough to place a real, performant, cross platform Swift UI O(years) out (c.f. Swift's stable ABI clusterfoo)
mdgrech23 6y ago
I don't know much about SwiftUI but I'm surprised to hear it's far behind?

matthewmacleod 6y ago

Hmm, I don’t recognise this characterisation. I have been a web front-end specialist for quite some time, and have also developed large-scale native UIs for both macOS and iOS. My perspective would be that there is no clear winner. The Apple environment is absolutely _miles_ ahead of the web platform in several respects; the web offers greater flexibility that comes with a corresponding cost. I’d agree at least that platform-specific developers can often keep themselves far too isolated. They really should be making an effort to work cross-platform as much as possible, because learning about the different patterns and techniques used in different environments is an incredible force multiplier.

pookieinc 6y ago
As someone who is also a front end dev, can you share more? I’ve been getting into Swift development on my free nights, but between the horrendous Xcode IDE errors / lag and learning the ins and outs of a new strongly typed language, it makes me hug my vscode / js environment tighter to my chest
anoncareer0212 6y ago
Maybe I'm conflating 'web framework' with 'anything that compiles down to JS'? It's impossible for me to think of areas where iOS dev felt miles ahead, but I can imagine if I was writing JS I'd feel that way (I'm really into Flutter lately)
wayneftw 6y ago
> The Apple environment is absolutely _miles_ ahead of the web platform in several respects... Such as? In any case, I'd assume those miles are only gained on iOS where Apple has gimped the newer web APIs.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Accessibility? Consistency? Performance?
- matthewmacleod 6y ago
  Such as? Picking some features I like entirely at random: libdispatch, Core Data, comprehensive accessibility support, SpriteKit, Core Video, ARKit… basically, there are lot of powerful and reasonably consistent APIs (with good performance) that really make a bunch of development much more tractable. Some of these can be replicated on the web platform; others can't. In any case, I'd assume those miles are only gained on iOS where Apple has gimped the newer web APIs. I'm sure you appreciate why that kind of attitude is a bit silly and serves to demonstrate the exact effect I was initially talking about.
  - anoncareer0212 6y ago
    There's no way you think Apple is miles ahead on async programming and ORMs, the iOS community has been clamoring for replacements for both for years and there's _plenty_ of web libraries for both. The rest looks like it's focused on graphics/stuff you wouldn't do on the web anyway - yes, the fact it's impossible on the web _means by definition Apple is miles ahead_, but claiming Apple is overall miles ahead on dev experience because of AR and video bitstream manipulation APIs is a bit blinkered, given very few developers get to use those APIs.
    - rabenfrass 6y ago
      We’d like a swift version of Core Data (a graph of objects), not a ORM. For async programming we have GCD and reactive libraries, async await is on master already, a design document is expected this month.

cglong 6y ago

I'd love to learn more. What technologies outside iOS have you used and what do they do better than SwiftUI?

anoncareer0212 6y ago
React Native, Android Java, Android Kotlin, Flutter, Jetpack Compose - Flutter is the runaway winner, in general - ARC looks like a mistake in retrospect - you trade 'GC overhead' for memory leaks - keeping autolayout _and_ absolute frames looks like a mistake: a significant portion of SwiftUI overhead is spent in autolayout - after working with Swift and _loving_ it between Swift 1 and 4, seeing the issues and watching Apple staff up and get more rigorous to solve them, stapling SwiftUI right now is unconsciable - it requires contorting the language spec and the slow speed removes the one benefit of all the other frameworks, hot reload on device. - Apple seems confused because they can _enumerate tractable work that would improve SwiftUI_, but the sum of that work is large enough to place a real, performant, cross platform Swift UI O(years) out (c.f. Swift's stable ABI clusterfoo)

mdgrech23 6y ago

I don't know much about SwiftUI but I'm surprised to hear it's far behind?