4 ms·

It's probably premature, but I'm hoping they will make good on this statement: > When the binary interface stabilizes in a year or two, the Swift runtime will

It's probably premature, but I'm hoping they will make good on this statement: > When the binary interface stabilizes in a year or two, the Swift runtime will become part of the host OS and this limitation will no longer exist. The current ~10Mb overhead is a hard sell to your manager when it will double your application size and slow down the development team in the short-term.

supercoder 11y ago
Then what are the positives to sell to your manager ?
- gonzo41 11y ago
  not using objective c
  - jsmthrowaway 11y ago
    I don't get the hate for Objective-C. I think it does a better job with the "object-oriented semantics bolted on to C" requirement than C++, having extensively used all three. Something about brackets and semicolons speaks to me. Who knows. Maybe it's just me. Now, having said that, maybe Swift is better for the use case, but it's not a reflection upon ObjC IMO.
    - MCRed 11y ago
      I love Objective-C and once I saw it, I stopped programming C++. I'm not a masochist. I think Swift is interesting and might be really great-- too early to tell for me. But Objective-C has done well, and especially when paired with Apple frameworks has delivered the best platform for building mobile apps ever seen.
      - getsat 11y ago
        Have you looked at C++14? It's a completely new beast.
        kccqzy 11y ago
        I think newer versions of C++ are going in the direction of Haskell: a lot of additions that make functional programming much more pleasant to use such as lambdas, variable templates, etc, but I couldn't remember any new C++ feature designed for traditional object-oriented programming. So to me it's entirely understandable that object-oriented aficionados would find C++ less and less likeable.
        plorkyeran 11y ago
        Better OOP is definitely not the direction the language is going. C++11 added override and final. C++14 had no OO features. C++17 may get UFCS (i.e. f(x, y) == x.f(y)), which is either an OO feature or another step away from OOP depending on how you view it.
  - toksaitov 11y ago
    I know a lot of people hate Objective-C… But I'm a bit sad we aren't gonna get any updates to it anymore. I loved it, loved it more than C++. It was a very nice approach to C with classes.
melling 11y ago
Yes, but program correctness and the ability to scale should easily offset worrying about 10MB. Look at all the work so me like John Carmack puts into correctness, for instance. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/128836/InDepth_Static_Code_Analysis.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/128836/InDepth_Static_Cod... "NULL pointers are the biggest problem in C/C++, at least in our code"
- simonh 11y ago
  Mobile over the air download limits. Nowadays with the limit at 100mb it's not as bad as it used to be when it was 50mb, or even 20mb back in the day. Still, you really don't want to go over that threshold if you can possibly avoid it
  - melling 11y ago
    Apple increased the limit 2 years ago. It's not even worth mentioning. http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/18/apple-increases-over-the-air-app-store-download-limit-to-100mb http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/18/apple-increases-over-the... You paid a small Swift binary size penalty for a year in exchange for safer code that you'll support for the next several years.
- BillinghamJ 11y ago
  I'm not convinced about this at all. Adding 10MB to the size of an app is actually a really big deal, especially in countries where 4G has not reached the majority of people yet. It is not hard to deal with null pointers, and the way Obj-C handles them is particularly friendly (returning nil on any message to a nil pointer).
  - Cthulhu_ 11y ago
    If your target audience is countries with those limitations (and no wifi) and the 10 MB overhead is too much, you'd probably opt to stick with objective-C for a while longer, then.
- darkFunction 11y ago
MCRed 11y ago
Can you explain why it will slow down your development team in the short term? Because you have to find another 10Mb? That's interesting. I remember the days of counting every byte, but I've never experienced it on iOS, just cause my apps were naturally pretty small even when being extravagant.
- darkFunction 11y ago
  I mean the learning curve and changes in tooling (C.I., testing libs, etc)
k-mcgrady 11y ago
I think I read rumours that this is almost certain to happen at WWDC.

supercoder 11y ago

Then what are the positives to sell to your manager ?

gonzo41 11y ago
not using objective c
- jsmthrowaway 11y ago
  I don't get the hate for Objective-C. I think it does a better job with the "object-oriented semantics bolted on to C" requirement than C++, having extensively used all three. Something about brackets and semicolons speaks to me. Who knows. Maybe it's just me. Now, having said that, maybe Swift is better for the use case, but it's not a reflection upon ObjC IMO.
  - MCRed 11y ago
    I love Objective-C and once I saw it, I stopped programming C++. I'm not a masochist. I think Swift is interesting and might be really great-- too early to tell for me. But Objective-C has done well, and especially when paired with Apple frameworks has delivered the best platform for building mobile apps ever seen.
    - getsat 11y ago
      Have you looked at C++14? It's a completely new beast.
      - kccqzy 11y ago
        I think newer versions of C++ are going in the direction of Haskell: a lot of additions that make functional programming much more pleasant to use such as lambdas, variable templates, etc, but I couldn't remember any new C++ feature designed for traditional object-oriented programming. So to me it's entirely understandable that object-oriented aficionados would find C++ less and less likeable.
        plorkyeran 11y ago
        Better OOP is definitely not the direction the language is going. C++11 added override and final. C++14 had no OO features. C++17 may get UFCS (i.e. f(x, y) == x.f(y)), which is either an OO feature or another step away from OOP depending on how you view it.
- toksaitov 11y ago
  I know a lot of people hate Objective-C… But I'm a bit sad we aren't gonna get any updates to it anymore. I loved it, loved it more than C++. It was a very nice approach to C with classes.

melling 11y ago

Yes, but program correctness and the ability to scale should easily offset worrying about 10MB. Look at all the work so me like John Carmack puts into correctness, for instance. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/128836/InDepth_Static_Code_Analysis.php http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/128836/InDepth_Static_Cod... "NULL pointers are the biggest problem in C/C++, at least in our code"

simonh 11y ago
Mobile over the air download limits. Nowadays with the limit at 100mb it's not as bad as it used to be when it was 50mb, or even 20mb back in the day. Still, you really don't want to go over that threshold if you can possibly avoid it
- melling 11y ago
  Apple increased the limit 2 years ago. It's not even worth mentioning. http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/18/apple-increases-over-the-air-app-store-download-limit-to-100mb http://www.macrumors.com/2013/09/18/apple-increases-over-the... You paid a small Swift binary size penalty for a year in exchange for safer code that you'll support for the next several years.
BillinghamJ 11y ago
I'm not convinced about this at all. Adding 10MB to the size of an app is actually a really big deal, especially in countries where 4G has not reached the majority of people yet. It is not hard to deal with null pointers, and the way Obj-C handles them is particularly friendly (returning nil on any message to a nil pointer).
- Cthulhu_ 11y ago
  If your target audience is countries with those limitations (and no wifi) and the 10 MB overhead is too much, you'd probably opt to stick with objective-C for a while longer, then.
darkFunction 11y ago

MCRed 11y ago

Can you explain why it will slow down your development team in the short term? Because you have to find another 10Mb? That's interesting. I remember the days of counting every byte, but I've never experienced it on iOS, just cause my apps were naturally pretty small even when being extravagant.

darkFunction 11y ago
I mean the learning curve and changes in tooling (C.I., testing libs, etc)

k-mcgrady 11y ago

I think I read rumours that this is almost certain to happen at WWDC.