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"Apple’s iOS7 support of JavaScript inline with your Objective-C code validates JavaScript as the leading (and only) non proprietary language that is supported
by pflats 13y ago
"Apple’s iOS7 support of JavaScript inline with your Objective-C code validates JavaScript as the leading (and only) non proprietary language that is supported within the iOS development environment by the device manufacturer."
Since when is Objective-C proprietary? Apple's given it a few non-standard extensions (i.e. blocks) but that doesn't make it a proprietary language. GCC and Clang are open source.
- bananacurve 13y agoTechnically true, but Cocoa is proprietary. Is ObjC widely used for anything else?
- mmariani 13y agoCocotron [1] is another alternative that can target Windows and even Linux with some exceptions. [1] http://www.cocotron.org http://www.cocotron.org
- eonil 13y agoCheck out Apportable. And proprietary doesn't mean narrowly used. Also open doesn't mean widely used. Bringing Cocoa was a good trial, but doesn't make the text correct.
- bananacurve 13y agoNo it does not make the text correct, people often conflate ObjC and Cocoa. Thanks for mentioning Apportable.
- lambda 13y agoWell, when people talk about ObjC development on Mac and iOS platforms, they generally mean ObjC plus Cocoa or Cocoa Touch. It's true that ObjC itself isn't what's proprietary, but Cocoa and Cocoa Touch are.
- randomdata 13y agoI suppose it is fair to say Objective-C plus Cocoa Touch is proprietary, but why is Javascript plus Cocoa Touch not proprietary in the same context?
- lambda 13y agoYou're absolutely right, I had forgotten that that was the original argument.
- mattschmulen 13y agoTrue on proprietary. I don's know of any impactful use cases for ObjC. However there are some good things about this. The spec can move fast, focus on success in use cases, and also make it easy to conform to 'nice' HIG. In many cases it's nice to not have to worry about these things and just focus on the end app use case. In the end when it comes to iOS and OSX its still Steve Jobs word were just playing in it.
- ketralnis 13y agoDoes OpenStep count? It's a clone of NeXTstep, which is what Cocoa is itself a descendent of
- mikestew 13y agoCocoa isn't ObjC, it's an Apple-specific framework. Granted, that's a bit of a nit-pick considering the answer to your 2nd question. But ObjC was around before NeXT showed up.
- chrisdevereux 13y agoOr, for that matter, C and C++
- blub 13y agoIt's not really, but there is no point in using it outside Apple platforms. I mean I spent time learning the thing and those skills are completely useless when not working on iOS and not really needed on the Mac in my case.
- duaneb 13y agoWell "not being used elsewhere" is different from "proprietary."