7 ms·

Objective-C in the Cloud

38 points by LinaLauneBaer 13y ago

twodayslate 13y ago
Very cool. Looking forward for the iOS SDK
alexgaribay 13y ago
This looks very awesome! I like what this is providing. I really like coding in Obj-c (not my most used language but love the syntax and feel) and being able to make a backend using code that could be shared with an iOS/Mac client is a very attractive feature to myself. I'm already sold on your service. I can't wait to get started and I'm really looking forward to the iOS and Mac SDKs.
jds375 13y ago
This definitely looks very interesting. I think I'll give it a try later this week. It would be awesome to do some coding in Obj-c for HTTP services for a change. Also, the name works out perfectly (Objective-C)loud, hah.
Tom9811 13y ago
The client SDKs will be published next week.
applecore 13y ago
objcloud.com is available, why not go with that?
- rfnslyr 13y ago
  Because I just bought it for no real reason.
zackmorris 13y ago
I'm torn how to feel about this. I've been developing with objective-c on iOS for several years now, and to say this as gently as I can ..it's not my favorite language. I want to play devil's advocate for a moment and ask some tough questions (these may go away in a request/response scenario where the app isn't running continuously): * How does Objective-Cloud handle circular references (will memory leaks be a problem?) * Is there a way to cut down on boilerplate (having to declare member variables, accessors, synthesize them, and understand the differences between var = _var, self.var, static class vars, etc?) * Any plans to port to other platforms (Android) and if so, will it still use objective-c? * How do you sandbox binary code (will security be a problem?) * Will you allow third party binaries/libraries to be uploaded with the code (or will everything be open source/code only?) To be fair, I believe that this style of development may be the future. Perhaps we need a wrapper around pure C because it doesn't do enough to promote inter-module communication, and C++ dropped the ball on that. I'm just concerned because objective-c is ideologically different from, say, Boost, D, or Go. It focusses more on patterns than abstractions and simplicity over correctness. I've found it nearly impossible to build an app in obj-c above a certain size that's guaranteed to run indefinitely, stably and without leaks. And I've found that large obj-c projects often lead to spaghetti code and repetition, because of a lack of understanding about things like delegates, inheritance, using notifications instead of nesting code, etc. Some aspects of obj-c are quite brilliant (like queuing tasks on the main run loop) but others like manual memory management are antiquated. But kudos for this effort. I'm curious how this plays out.
- melling 13y ago
  Well, it only helps, right? Many people think Apple invented Objective-C and that it's part of their wall garden. Creating a slightly larger ecosystem of Objective C will hopefully help grow cross platform support. It would really be nice to reuse some of that iOS code...
  - huxley 13y ago
    I know you don't think Apple invented it but ... Brad Cox and Tom Love did, their company Productivity Products International (PPI) developed Objective-C way back in the early 1980s. PPI became Stepstone, their biggest customer NeXT licensed ObjC in 1988, then in 1995 acquired the trademark and rights to ObjC from Stepstone. And then finally Apple bought NeXT in 1996. Interestingly, this is not the first time ObjC has been used for web stuff, WebObjects/EOF was originally an ObjC web framework but was later ported to Java.
- chrisdevereux 13y ago
  I'd agree with many of your concerns about Objective-C as a language for writing cloud services. The best thing about it as a language vs. more modern alternatives is that the lack of GC makes worst-case memory allocation times predictable, which is important in a client app but not so much on a server. The most interesting thing about this to me is that it makes the Apple frameworks (especially the multimedia ones --- CoreImage, CoreAudio, etc) available to cloud services. I wonder about using RubyMotion or Mono with a service like this. It might address some of your concerns about the language.
- gress 13y ago
  > Is there a way to cut down on boilerplate (having to declare member variables, accessors, synthesize them, and understand the differences between var = _var, self.var, static class vars, etc?) Yes. Objective-C no longer requires most of this.
- graetzer 13y ago
  I happened to be at a presentation the creators of this gave a few months ago * I think ARC helps with most of the problems, of course you'll have to understand where to use weak or strong etc. * You don't have to write @synthezize anymore, literals remove a lot of boilerplate too: http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ObjectiveCLiterals.html http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ObjectiveCLiterals.html * As far as I know the protocol between server and client is just HTTP + JSON * They use the BSD sandboxing facility https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man7/sandbox.7.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin...
pepijndevos 13y ago
So this is still pretty mac-centric, right? I tried using Obj-C on Linux as a "better C", much like people use C++, D, Rust... The language is... acceptable. The ecosystem is just, mac, mac, mac.
- Tom9811 13y ago
  We made the service completely non-mac-centric. One of the basic ideas is, that you can develop a service on the mac that uses all the frameworks of OS X, but the client can be written in C, C++, Java, … Anything that knows HTTP and JSON.
yoda_sl 13y ago
WebObjects 4.5 anyone? For those not familiar WebObjects was the Objective-C framework created at NeXT for developing Web Apps in the 90's. It was then later on ported to 100% Java. WebObjects 4.5 was the latest ObjC version and was cross platform even at the time: NeXT, Windows, Solaris and HP-UX.
mentos 13y ago
I currently use Parse but I could definitely benefit from not having to switch between Obj-C/Javascript(Parse Cloud Code) when writing my backend. As well it would be nice to copy/paste logic between client/server. However, I think I'd have to see Push notifications and another layer of abstraction added to the database layer before I considered switching to Objective-Cloud. If Apportable delivers on its promises you could theoretically never leave Objective-C land.
millerm 13y ago
I've been playing around with the API and tools for the last hour. Seems pretty cool. Very easy to understand and very straightforward. It sure is nice to be able to share code/language between the client and the server. If not for immediate full blown production usage, this can still be a very effective tool for an iOS/Mac developer who might not know their server's language and frameworks. The developer will be able to get a useful, functional prototype up and running very quickly. It does seem like a very enabling tech for iOS/Mac developers. Edited for style.

38 points by LinaLauneBaer 13y ago

Very cool. Looking forward for the iOS SDK

This looks very awesome! I like what this is providing. I really like coding in Obj-c (not my most used language but love the syntax and feel) and being able to make a backend using code that could be shared with an iOS/Mac client is a very attractive feature to myself. I'm already sold on your service. I can't wait to get started and I'm really looking forward to the iOS and Mac SDKs.

jds375 13y ago

This definitely looks very interesting. I think I'll give it a try later this week. It would be awesome to do some coding in Obj-c for HTTP services for a change. Also, the name works out perfectly (Objective-C)loud, hah.

Tom9811 13y ago

The client SDKs will be published next week.

applecore 13y ago

objcloud.com is available, why not go with that?

rfnslyr 13y ago
Because I just bought it for no real reason.

zackmorris 13y ago

I'm torn how to feel about this. I've been developing with objective-c on iOS for several years now, and to say this as gently as I can ..it's not my favorite language. I want to play devil's advocate for a moment and ask some tough questions (these may go away in a request/response scenario where the app isn't running continuously): * How does Objective-Cloud handle circular references (will memory leaks be a problem?) * Is there a way to cut down on boilerplate (having to declare member variables, accessors, synthesize them, and understand the differences between var = _var, self.var, static class vars, etc?) * Any plans to port to other platforms (Android) and if so, will it still use objective-c? * How do you sandbox binary code (will security be a problem?) * Will you allow third party binaries/libraries to be uploaded with the code (or will everything be open source/code only?) To be fair, I believe that this style of development may be the future. Perhaps we need a wrapper around pure C because it doesn't do enough to promote inter-module communication, and C++ dropped the ball on that. I'm just concerned because objective-c is ideologically different from, say, Boost, D, or Go. It focusses more on patterns than abstractions and simplicity over correctness. I've found it nearly impossible to build an app in obj-c above a certain size that's guaranteed to run indefinitely, stably and without leaks. And I've found that large obj-c projects often lead to spaghetti code and repetition, because of a lack of understanding about things like delegates, inheritance, using notifications instead of nesting code, etc. Some aspects of obj-c are quite brilliant (like queuing tasks on the main run loop) but others like manual memory management are antiquated. But kudos for this effort. I'm curious how this plays out.

melling 13y ago
Well, it only helps, right? Many people think Apple invented Objective-C and that it's part of their wall garden. Creating a slightly larger ecosystem of Objective C will hopefully help grow cross platform support. It would really be nice to reuse some of that iOS code...
- huxley 13y ago
  I know you don't think Apple invented it but ... Brad Cox and Tom Love did, their company Productivity Products International (PPI) developed Objective-C way back in the early 1980s. PPI became Stepstone, their biggest customer NeXT licensed ObjC in 1988, then in 1995 acquired the trademark and rights to ObjC from Stepstone. And then finally Apple bought NeXT in 1996. Interestingly, this is not the first time ObjC has been used for web stuff, WebObjects/EOF was originally an ObjC web framework but was later ported to Java.
chrisdevereux 13y ago
I'd agree with many of your concerns about Objective-C as a language for writing cloud services. The best thing about it as a language vs. more modern alternatives is that the lack of GC makes worst-case memory allocation times predictable, which is important in a client app but not so much on a server. The most interesting thing about this to me is that it makes the Apple frameworks (especially the multimedia ones --- CoreImage, CoreAudio, etc) available to cloud services. I wonder about using RubyMotion or Mono with a service like this. It might address some of your concerns about the language.
gress 13y ago
> Is there a way to cut down on boilerplate (having to declare member variables, accessors, synthesize them, and understand the differences between var = _var, self.var, static class vars, etc?) Yes. Objective-C no longer requires most of this.
graetzer 13y ago
I happened to be at a presentation the creators of this gave a few months ago * I think ARC helps with most of the problems, of course you'll have to understand where to use weak or strong etc. * You don't have to write @synthezize anymore, literals remove a lot of boilerplate too: http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ObjectiveCLiterals.html http://clang.llvm.org/docs/ObjectiveCLiterals.html * As far as I know the protocol between server and client is just HTTP + JSON * They use the BSD sandboxing facility https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man7/sandbox.7.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin...

pepijndevos 13y ago

So this is still pretty mac-centric, right? I tried using Obj-C on Linux as a "better C", much like people use C++, D, Rust... The language is... acceptable. The ecosystem is just, mac, mac, mac.

Tom9811 13y ago
We made the service completely non-mac-centric. One of the basic ideas is, that you can develop a service on the mac that uses all the frameworks of OS X, but the client can be written in C, C++, Java, … Anything that knows HTTP and JSON.

yoda_sl 13y ago

WebObjects 4.5 anyone? For those not familiar WebObjects was the Objective-C framework created at NeXT for developing Web Apps in the 90's. It was then later on ported to 100% Java. WebObjects 4.5 was the latest ObjC version and was cross platform even at the time: NeXT, Windows, Solaris and HP-UX.

mentos 13y ago

I currently use Parse but I could definitely benefit from not having to switch between Obj-C/Javascript(Parse Cloud Code) when writing my backend. As well it would be nice to copy/paste logic between client/server. However, I think I'd have to see Push notifications and another layer of abstraction added to the database layer before I considered switching to Objective-Cloud. If Apportable delivers on its promises you could theoretically never leave Objective-C land.

millerm 13y ago

I've been playing around with the API and tools for the last hour. Seems pretty cool. Very easy to understand and very straightforward. It sure is nice to be able to share code/language between the client and the server. If not for immediate full blown production usage, this can still be a very effective tool for an iOS/Mac developer who might not know their server's language and frameworks. The developer will be able to get a useful, functional prototype up and running very quickly. It does seem like a very enabling tech for iOS/Mac developers. Edited for style.