4 ms·

I agree wrt Obj-C but as a non-Mac developer it would not have been obvious to me a priori that something that was declared version 2 already wasn't stable. (I

by mst 5y ago

I agree wrt Obj-C but as a non-Mac developer it would not have been obvious to me a priori that something that was declared version 2 already wasn't stable. (I would absolutely assume that if it was officially still unstable that would have been documented somewhere ... I would absolutely not assume that I would have noticed)

nevster 5y ago
Agree - 99.9% of Java 1 apps will still compile and run just fine on Java 17
- nitrogen 5y ago
  Unless you used XML.
  - mlyle 5y ago
    Are you talking about jaxp? Don't old jaxp jars still work?
    - cesarb 5y ago
      The parent comment is probably talking about the J2EE packages which used to come with the JRE before Java 11; a lot of code which used to run on Java 8 and earlier no longer runs on Java 11 and later unless you manually add a couple of extra JARs to the classpath (and good luck knowing which ones are needed when reflection is involved). However, the grandparent comment is talking about Java 1, which is before J2EE; the thing which would break code from that time is probably not going to be XML, but instead things like Applet support. There's a good chance that a Java 1 app is in fact an applet designed to run within a browser, and no longer runs fine on Java 17 since the Java plugin is no longer supported.
chipotle_coyote 5y ago
I know very little about Mac/iOS application development, but my impression from developer friends and acquaintances is that Swift uses an unusual variant of semantic versioning, in which all real numbers are assumed to be unstable releases. (it's a joke, I love you, Swift developers)
christoph 5y ago
I’m sure I’m going to be running the HN gauntlet here, but AS3+Flex was a beautiful time to be coding for me. I was paid to basically knock corporate front-end software out (what would now be certainly termed SPAs, oh, how we reinvented the wheel…) day in and day out when Flash wasn’t a very naughty, bad swear word. We knew how it would run in every browser, it was responsive and it seamlessly integrated with all our backend web services. Easily. I honestly feel that it’s only in the last year or two HTML/JS is now at parity with where we were with this stuff nearly 10 years ago. Yes, it is clearly much better now for all sorts of reasons, I won’t sugar coat it… Flash also sucked badly. Very badly. but… AS3 with Flex “bindings/proper ties” was a beautiful set up. It just worked. Always. Everywhere. The only other language I’ve felt a serious affinity with was Objective-C. It’s the only language where I knew when I hit compile/run any errors were on me. Maybe it’s just having spent years in those ecosystems/languages and developing what some might call “mastery”, I never got surprised. I never felt like a master. People above me always knew so much more. I do remember writing a couple of thousand lines of Obj-c over two heavily caffeine fuelled days, hitting run for the first time and it just worked. Years on I still find “gotchas” in JS and CSS that I just never found in those languages. Maybe I thought about code more back then? Constant integration and hot reloads all the time, just make it all feel a bit different. Maybe I’m just set in my ways from spending a day typing out Spectrum machine code from the back of a magazine? Anyway… my favourite language of all time is Objective-c, that’s all I actually wanted to say. Rant over.
- simion314 5y ago
  I done AS3 and Flex4 Adobe AIR apps, AS3 was similar to TypeScript . And Flex4 had very good layout components and widgets , IMO web is still behind Flex4 for SPAs advanced applications.
dehrmann 5y ago
> it would not have been obvious to me a priori that something that was declared version 2 already wasn't stable Swift came out in Sept. 2014 and v2 in 2015. Just knowing that the language was 1.5 years old would bring long-term compatibility doubts to mind.
- laumars 5y ago
  That’s not really fair. For example Go programs written in v1.0 are still mostly compilable (the few tweaks you do need to make aren’t substantial). Rightly or wrongly Apple very much decided Swift should take a different approach to backward compatibility.
  - dehrmann 5y ago
    You're always rolling the dice with new languages; Go just happened to be mostly compatible. If you want something that will compile in 20 years, pick something with a track record.
    - mst 5y ago
      My perl5 version 8 code still runs perfectly on version 34, and for all people's (often valid) dislike of perl still helps a lot of companies make a lot of money. That wasn't the point I was trying to make in that particular comment though.
    - laumars 5y ago
      Most languages offer some guarantee by the time they hit version 1, let alone 2. Take Python for example, v2 took a decade to deprecate. Swift is the edge case on this one. Not the norm.

by mst 5y ago

nevster 5y ago

Agree - 99.9% of Java 1 apps will still compile and run just fine on Java 17

nitrogen 5y ago
Unless you used XML.
- mlyle 5y ago
  Are you talking about jaxp? Don't old jaxp jars still work?
  - cesarb 5y ago
    The parent comment is probably talking about the J2EE packages which used to come with the JRE before Java 11; a lot of code which used to run on Java 8 and earlier no longer runs on Java 11 and later unless you manually add a couple of extra JARs to the classpath (and good luck knowing which ones are needed when reflection is involved). However, the grandparent comment is talking about Java 1, which is before J2EE; the thing which would break code from that time is probably not going to be XML, but instead things like Applet support. There's a good chance that a Java 1 app is in fact an applet designed to run within a browser, and no longer runs fine on Java 17 since the Java plugin is no longer supported.

chipotle_coyote 5y ago

I know very little about Mac/iOS application development, but my impression from developer friends and acquaintances is that Swift uses an unusual variant of semantic versioning, in which all real numbers are assumed to be unstable releases. (it's a joke, I love you, Swift developers)

christoph 5y ago

I’m sure I’m going to be running the HN gauntlet here, but AS3+Flex was a beautiful time to be coding for me. I was paid to basically knock corporate front-end software out (what would now be certainly termed SPAs, oh, how we reinvented the wheel…) day in and day out when Flash wasn’t a very naughty, bad swear word. We knew how it would run in every browser, it was responsive and it seamlessly integrated with all our backend web services. Easily. I honestly feel that it’s only in the last year or two HTML/JS is now at parity with where we were with this stuff nearly 10 years ago. Yes, it is clearly much better now for all sorts of reasons, I won’t sugar coat it… Flash also sucked badly. Very badly. but… AS3 with Flex “bindings/proper ties” was a beautiful set up. It just worked. Always. Everywhere. The only other language I’ve felt a serious affinity with was Objective-C. It’s the only language where I knew when I hit compile/run any errors were on me. Maybe it’s just having spent years in those ecosystems/languages and developing what some might call “mastery”, I never got surprised. I never felt like a master. People above me always knew so much more. I do remember writing a couple of thousand lines of Obj-c over two heavily caffeine fuelled days, hitting run for the first time and it just worked. Years on I still find “gotchas” in JS and CSS that I just never found in those languages. Maybe I thought about code more back then? Constant integration and hot reloads all the time, just make it all feel a bit different. Maybe I’m just set in my ways from spending a day typing out Spectrum machine code from the back of a magazine? Anyway… my favourite language of all time is Objective-c, that’s all I actually wanted to say. Rant over.

simion314 5y ago
I done AS3 and Flex4 Adobe AIR apps, AS3 was similar to TypeScript . And Flex4 had very good layout components and widgets , IMO web is still behind Flex4 for SPAs advanced applications.

dehrmann 5y ago

> it would not have been obvious to me a priori that something that was declared version 2 already wasn't stable Swift came out in Sept. 2014 and v2 in 2015. Just knowing that the language was 1.5 years old would bring long-term compatibility doubts to mind.

laumars 5y ago
That’s not really fair. For example Go programs written in v1.0 are still mostly compilable (the few tweaks you do need to make aren’t substantial). Rightly or wrongly Apple very much decided Swift should take a different approach to backward compatibility.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  You're always rolling the dice with new languages; Go just happened to be mostly compatible. If you want something that will compile in 20 years, pick something with a track record.
  - mst 5y ago
    My perl5 version 8 code still runs perfectly on version 34, and for all people's (often valid) dislike of perl still helps a lot of companies make a lot of money. That wasn't the point I was trying to make in that particular comment though.
  - laumars 5y ago
    Most languages offer some guarantee by the time they hit version 1, let alone 2. Take Python for example, v2 took a decade to deprecate. Swift is the edge case on this one. Not the norm.