12 ms·

I'm not even an iOS developer but this is by far the most exciting thing I heard in the keynote. As an amatuer/hobbyist programmer who's self-taught with Ruby,

by nlh 12y ago

I'm not even an iOS developer but this is by far the most exciting thing I heard in the keynote. As an amatuer/hobbyist programmer who's self-taught with Ruby, JavaScript, etc., the one thing that was keeping me from experimenting with iOS apps was Objective-C. I know I could tackle it, but it's been hard to take the plunge. I don't know much about Swift yet, but from what I've seen it looks very exciting. So if Apple's goal was to get new devs into the iOS world, at least from 10k feet, it's working. I'm excited!

dfc 12y ago
> So if Apple's goal was to get new devs into the iOS world, at least > from 10k feet, it's working They just announced Swift, at a conference for Apple developers, with live streaming that is only easily accessed from an ios device. I think it is probably premature to pop the corks and celebrate the efficacy of the get new developers initiative.
- tylermac1 12y ago
  How else are they supposed to announce it? It's simply that, an announcement. People are talking about it now and there's info on the Apple site. I see this as a huge push forward for new developers.
  - stonemetal 12y ago
    The announcement was fine, it is the "its working" part that is odd considering it is less than a day old. Let's see if it actually attracts new developers before we declare it a mighty success.
- mtrimpe 12y ago
  Well; based on the promise of immediate inclusion in the app store and a very well thought out book about the language available for free I'd say they're doing rather well so far already.
  - dfc 12y ago
    You mentioned things that are likely to bring about the desired result of creating new ios developers. I am not disagreeing about the likelihood of success. I am simply saying that T + 8h is probably too soon to conclude that the program is successfully creating new ios developers. To be honest I think it is absurd to expect that such a program from any company could bring about the desired goal of creating new developers in less than eight hours.
- lavamantis 12y ago
  As someone wise mentioned to me, Objective-c was 20% of the problem and Apple's silly rules and controls around app distribution are the other 80%. As someone who had their app available in the app store for nearly 8 months including 3 approved updates before being (seemingly) arbitrarily rejected, I feel the pain of that other 80%.
creativeembassy 12y ago
I spent a lot of time trying to do stuff with ObjectiveC, but just hated the syntax. That's been the biggest thing keeping me from developing Mac OSX apps; I just prefer Ruby's simplicity. I'm going to seriously give Swift a try.
- will_work4tears 12y ago
  Yep, same here. It looks pretty JavaScript-y, which is familiar at least. I think this is a good move on Apple's part.
  - stcredzero 12y ago
    It's probably a wise decision to have an "Algol patterned" language. No non Algol patterned language has ever become a mainstream programming language to my knowledge.
    - dfc 12y ago
      I am not a programming language wonk; so I imagine most languages I am familiar-with/know-of are necessarily Algol patterned. What are some non-Algol patterned languages?
      - davidw 12y ago
        Lisp, Forth, Prolog (and Erlang), Smalltalk, Haskell, and Tcl all come to mind.
      - stcredzero 12y ago
        In particular, Obj-C = Smalltalk + C. If you subtract C from Obj-C, you'd most easily just end up with Smalltalk. But that's not the right move for mass adoption.
    - Someone 12y ago
      I agree with the first, but disagree with the second part: COBOL, Fortran, JCL (not Turing complete, AFAIK), SQL, Excel, DOS batch files all were (fairly) mainstream at some time.
slantyyz 12y ago
Agreed. I would go so far as to say that this was "one more thing" worthy. It's definitely more exciting than something like an incremental update to the Apple TV.
- mercer 12y ago
  My dad tuned out as the keynote got to this point, but for me (as a web developer... for now!) this was the highlight.
te_chris 12y ago
I don't get the hate. Yeah, syntax is unfamiliar, bu once I got used to it I began to really enjoy objective-c. Ymmv etc., but it's now one of my fav languages - though I guess this is mostly due to cocoa
- unreal37 12y ago
  It's not hate, but Objective-C can be intimidating.
  - espitia 12y ago
    I just spent the past 2 months learning obj-c, about to release my first app and boom, X out obj-c. my luck.
    - rgbrgb 12y ago
      90% of what you learned are Cocoa frameworks and Apple-flavored OOP patterns that will be totally applicable to apps written in Swift. Fear not!
    - lstamour 12y ago
      No worries, Objective-C is faaar from deprecated.
    - brianpgordon 12y ago
      You'll always be able to contribute to NeXTSTEP. It's not dead yet!
    - krenoten 12y ago
      I don't know very much at all about objective C, but the way these things generally work is that you will benefit from the experience as you learn new languages, as it will be an anchor of context against which you may base fresh perceptions.
    - oldguysrule 12y ago
      Objective C isn’t going anywhere. Swift is shit. I suspect it will die in a couple years, like the misguided effort to get people to adopt the Java bridge or WebScript before that.
bkurtz13 12y ago
I feel the exact same way. For a while now I've been looking at other ways to develop for iOS, such as HTML5 with PhoneGap or C# with Xamarin, but it's always been a kludge. Swift looks amazing and I'm really excited to try it out tonight! Great job Apple devs.
angersock 12y ago
I'm not really that impressed--it looks like a hodgepodge of ideas from ES6, Ruby, Go, and maybe Rust, with a bit of backend work done to let it work on their existing infrastructure. I dislike that Apple has continued the special snowflake approach, that for some reason we as developers need to learn yet another different-but-almost-the-same language to develop for them, instead of just adding proper support and documentation for an existing language. Why not just let us use ES6, or normal C/C++, or Java? But instead, now there's yet another language without great innovation that is probably going to be badly supported outside of the Apple ecosystem but still will have enough fandom to keep it alive and make life annoying. At least Google had the decency to pick a language everybody was already using and use that. EDIT: I feel bad for all the engineers stuck in those pixel mines, not allowed to talk about what they're doing, doomed to reinvent things that are on the way out just as they come in.
- jacobevelyn 12y ago
  Agreed that the lack of using an existing (and open-source!) language is annoying and frustrating to deal with (think of where we'd be if they invested that time and effort into improving Ruby/Python/whatever instead!). But because of the desire for compatibility with Objective-C, and Apple's general desire to call all the shots regarding their ecosystem, this move doesn't surprise me in the least.
  - angersock 12y ago
    Apple consistently represents a step backwards for both developers and users, in terms of engineering and freedom, but they've amassed enough capital at this point that the hope of them simply withering on the vine and dying off is probably not going to happen. At least Microsoft and Google show off their new projects and code so everyone can learn from them and read their research.
    - ethyreal 12y ago
      any proof to back up those claims?
sleepyhead 12y ago
btw: http://www.rubymotion.com/ http://www.rubymotion.com/

by nlh 12y ago

dfc 12y ago

> So if Apple's goal was to get new devs into the iOS world, at least > from 10k feet, it's working They just announced Swift, at a conference for Apple developers, with live streaming that is only easily accessed from an ios device. I think it is probably premature to pop the corks and celebrate the efficacy of the get new developers initiative.

tylermac1 12y ago
How else are they supposed to announce it? It's simply that, an announcement. People are talking about it now and there's info on the Apple site. I see this as a huge push forward for new developers.
- stonemetal 12y ago
  The announcement was fine, it is the "its working" part that is odd considering it is less than a day old. Let's see if it actually attracts new developers before we declare it a mighty success.
mtrimpe 12y ago
Well; based on the promise of immediate inclusion in the app store and a very well thought out book about the language available for free I'd say they're doing rather well so far already.
- dfc 12y ago
  You mentioned things that are likely to bring about the desired result of creating new ios developers. I am not disagreeing about the likelihood of success. I am simply saying that T + 8h is probably too soon to conclude that the program is successfully creating new ios developers. To be honest I think it is absurd to expect that such a program from any company could bring about the desired goal of creating new developers in less than eight hours.
lavamantis 12y ago
As someone wise mentioned to me, Objective-c was 20% of the problem and Apple's silly rules and controls around app distribution are the other 80%. As someone who had their app available in the app store for nearly 8 months including 3 approved updates before being (seemingly) arbitrarily rejected, I feel the pain of that other 80%.

creativeembassy 12y ago

I spent a lot of time trying to do stuff with ObjectiveC, but just hated the syntax. That's been the biggest thing keeping me from developing Mac OSX apps; I just prefer Ruby's simplicity. I'm going to seriously give Swift a try.

will_work4tears 12y ago
Yep, same here. It looks pretty JavaScript-y, which is familiar at least. I think this is a good move on Apple's part.
- stcredzero 12y ago
  It's probably a wise decision to have an "Algol patterned" language. No non Algol patterned language has ever become a mainstream programming language to my knowledge.
  - dfc 12y ago
    I am not a programming language wonk; so I imagine most languages I am familiar-with/know-of are necessarily Algol patterned. What are some non-Algol patterned languages?
    - davidw 12y ago
      Lisp, Forth, Prolog (and Erlang), Smalltalk, Haskell, and Tcl all come to mind.
    - stcredzero 12y ago
      In particular, Obj-C = Smalltalk + C. If you subtract C from Obj-C, you'd most easily just end up with Smalltalk. But that's not the right move for mass adoption.
  - Someone 12y ago
    I agree with the first, but disagree with the second part: COBOL, Fortran, JCL (not Turing complete, AFAIK), SQL, Excel, DOS batch files all were (fairly) mainstream at some time.

slantyyz 12y ago

Agreed. I would go so far as to say that this was "one more thing" worthy. It's definitely more exciting than something like an incremental update to the Apple TV.

mercer 12y ago
My dad tuned out as the keynote got to this point, but for me (as a web developer... for now!) this was the highlight.

te_chris 12y ago

I don't get the hate. Yeah, syntax is unfamiliar, bu once I got used to it I began to really enjoy objective-c. Ymmv etc., but it's now one of my fav languages - though I guess this is mostly due to cocoa

unreal37 12y ago
It's not hate, but Objective-C can be intimidating.
- espitia 12y ago
  I just spent the past 2 months learning obj-c, about to release my first app and boom, X out obj-c. my luck.
  - rgbrgb 12y ago
    90% of what you learned are Cocoa frameworks and Apple-flavored OOP patterns that will be totally applicable to apps written in Swift. Fear not!
  - lstamour 12y ago
    No worries, Objective-C is faaar from deprecated.
  - brianpgordon 12y ago
    You'll always be able to contribute to NeXTSTEP. It's not dead yet!
  - krenoten 12y ago
    I don't know very much at all about objective C, but the way these things generally work is that you will benefit from the experience as you learn new languages, as it will be an anchor of context against which you may base fresh perceptions.
  - oldguysrule 12y ago
    Objective C isn’t going anywhere. Swift is shit. I suspect it will die in a couple years, like the misguided effort to get people to adopt the Java bridge or WebScript before that.

bkurtz13 12y ago

I feel the exact same way. For a while now I've been looking at other ways to develop for iOS, such as HTML5 with PhoneGap or C# with Xamarin, but it's always been a kludge. Swift looks amazing and I'm really excited to try it out tonight! Great job Apple devs.

angersock 12y ago

I'm not really that impressed--it looks like a hodgepodge of ideas from ES6, Ruby, Go, and maybe Rust, with a bit of backend work done to let it work on their existing infrastructure. I dislike that Apple has continued the special snowflake approach, that for some reason we as developers need to learn yet another different-but-almost-the-same language to develop for them, instead of just adding proper support and documentation for an existing language. Why not just let us use ES6, or normal C/C++, or Java? But instead, now there's yet another language without great innovation that is probably going to be badly supported outside of the Apple ecosystem but still will have enough fandom to keep it alive and make life annoying. At least Google had the decency to pick a language everybody was already using and use that. EDIT: I feel bad for all the engineers stuck in those pixel mines, not allowed to talk about what they're doing, doomed to reinvent things that are on the way out just as they come in.

jacobevelyn 12y ago
Agreed that the lack of using an existing (and open-source!) language is annoying and frustrating to deal with (think of where we'd be if they invested that time and effort into improving Ruby/Python/whatever instead!). But because of the desire for compatibility with Objective-C, and Apple's general desire to call all the shots regarding their ecosystem, this move doesn't surprise me in the least.
- angersock 12y ago
  Apple consistently represents a step backwards for both developers and users, in terms of engineering and freedom, but they've amassed enough capital at this point that the hope of them simply withering on the vine and dying off is probably not going to happen. At least Microsoft and Google show off their new projects and code so everyone can learn from them and read their research.
  - ethyreal 12y ago
    any proof to back up those claims?

sleepyhead 12y ago

btw: http://www.rubymotion.com/ http://www.rubymotion.com/