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I don't think it is quite fair to call Xcode crashes an Objective-C wart. It has nigh-unto absolutely nothing to do with the language, and you can of course exe

by DHowett 15y ago

I don't think it is quite fair to call Xcode crashes an Objective-C wart. It has nigh-unto absolutely nothing to do with the language, and you can of course execute the compiler directly. I'd be interested to know what other things you consider warts - of the language, not the utilities. Apart from blocks (which seem to have a clear, concise syntax: certainly cleaner and more concise than lambdas in C++11.)

fleitz 15y ago
Yes, to be fair it's an iOS development wart, part of the Obj-C ecosystem. The only reason I'd use Obj-C is to write iOS/Mac apps so it's part and parcel for me. I tend to expect tools that I pay $99/year for to work. Yes, it's possible to work around all these issues but once you've worked around them you no longer have a very good development environment and are back to vim + make/xcodebuild. Lets not even get into the horrid bugs still present in clang (although arguably this is a defect in the compiler and not the language). Blocks may be more concise than lambdas in C++ but they are even cleaner in C# and F#. I'd actually prefer a hybrid between the two where there was no return necessary for multistatement lambdas in C# and no fun keyword required in F#. Yes, I'm picky about what I like and dislike in languages. The __block keyword is also fairly annoying. The biggest warts for me are the impedance mismatches between various parts of the system. Primitive types and NSObject mismatches blocks, function pointers, and selectors (a selector should also be able to capture the object for which it is invoked), similar to how C# works out the differences between methods, delegates, and lambdas. Also, the lack of generics, although I do appreciate essential lack of type system and ability to violate method signatures if one so chooses. At least in Obj-C the lack of generics conveys some ostensible benefit even if utilizing it is poor form.
- batista 15y ago
  >I tend to expect tools that I pay $99/year for to work. Really? Because you can find tools that crash ever for 1 million/year... If anything $99/year is on the very low side. I wouldn't expect anything to be bug-free at that price point. Have you tried any other large package, from Autocad to Creative Suite to SAP? Do they work 100% of the time?
  - fleitz 15y ago
    No they arent bug free, but they generally don't crash / stop working in some significant way every hour or two. Xcode is buggy as hell, on par with windows 9x. I've used autocad back when it ran on Dos and it wasn't that buggy, same with creative suite. It's worse than vs.net 2002. 4.3.1 does seem to be better.
    - batista 15y ago
      Keep in mind that 4.x is an almost complete rewrite, too.

by DHowett 15y ago

fleitz 15y ago

Yes, to be fair it's an iOS development wart, part of the Obj-C ecosystem. The only reason I'd use Obj-C is to write iOS/Mac apps so it's part and parcel for me. I tend to expect tools that I pay $99/year for to work. Yes, it's possible to work around all these issues but once you've worked around them you no longer have a very good development environment and are back to vim + make/xcodebuild. Lets not even get into the horrid bugs still present in clang (although arguably this is a defect in the compiler and not the language). Blocks may be more concise than lambdas in C++ but they are even cleaner in C# and F#. I'd actually prefer a hybrid between the two where there was no return necessary for multistatement lambdas in C# and no fun keyword required in F#. Yes, I'm picky about what I like and dislike in languages. The __block keyword is also fairly annoying. The biggest warts for me are the impedance mismatches between various parts of the system. Primitive types and NSObject mismatches blocks, function pointers, and selectors (a selector should also be able to capture the object for which it is invoked), similar to how C# works out the differences between methods, delegates, and lambdas. Also, the lack of generics, although I do appreciate essential lack of type system and ability to violate method signatures if one so chooses. At least in Obj-C the lack of generics conveys some ostensible benefit even if utilizing it is poor form.

batista 15y ago
>I tend to expect tools that I pay $99/year for to work. Really? Because you can find tools that crash ever for 1 million/year... If anything $99/year is on the very low side. I wouldn't expect anything to be bug-free at that price point. Have you tried any other large package, from Autocad to Creative Suite to SAP? Do they work 100% of the time?
- fleitz 15y ago
  No they arent bug free, but they generally don't crash / stop working in some significant way every hour or two. Xcode is buggy as hell, on par with windows 9x. I've used autocad back when it ran on Dos and it wasn't that buggy, same with creative suite. It's worse than vs.net 2002. 4.3.1 does seem to be better.
  - batista 15y ago
    Keep in mind that 4.x is an almost complete rewrite, too.