Reply to: WWDC

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Hmm, you can still write OSX applications in pure C++ can't you, using Carbon? That was only deprecated 2 years ago!

Carbon is deprecated but pretty much dead in the water, especially if you want to write a native 64 bit app.

[d000hg]

I realise that and I said Obj-C isn't going to go away overnight. But I'd certainly expect Swift to become the only supported language on iOS within the next 3 years. OSX might take longer for the reasons you've stated.

No longer supported doesn't have to mean "won't work"...it could mean: no new developments to the language (I expect this won't take long at all), reduced support on newer OS versions, no support for newer APIs or frameworks. Like I said, it will be gradual and I suspect you'll be able to write OSX apps using Objective-C for quite a while, although you won't necessarily be able to sell them through the Mac App Store.

Hmm, you can still write OSX applications in pure C++ can't you, using Carbon? That was only deprecated 2 years ago!

[MicrosoftBob]

No doubt there will be some who resist the change and refuse to learn Swift...it will be their loss. They'll become like those people who still write classic ASP in VBScript.

I did a project for some american company who were trying to do MVC in Asp (Yup not .Net) and thought using the parallax effect in jquery was cutting edge....shudder

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Don't forget, the existing Obj-C codebase isn't all 99p iOS games or nifty little Mac utilities. How much effort do you think Adobe would have to put in to rewrite their Creative Cloud suite in a new language? Is there any business case for a ground-up rewrite of industry standard video editor Final Cut Pro?

I realise that and I said Obj-C isn't going to go away overnight. But I'd certainly expect Swift to become the only supported language on iOS within the next 3 years. OSX might take longer for the reasons you've stated.

No longer supported doesn't have to mean "won't work"...it could mean: no new developments to the language (I expect this won't take long at all), reduced support on newer OS versions, no support for newer APIs or frameworks. Like I said, it will be gradual and I suspect you'll be able to write OSX apps using Objective-C for quite a while, although you won't necessarily be able to sell them through the Mac App Store.

[NickFitz]

As soon as new developer technologies and APIs start being geared towards Swift rather than Objective-C in a way that makes backwards compatibility difficult, they'll start to phase it out and it won't take that long either. The vast majority of iOS/Mac developers are going to learn Swift and I think most will welcome the change.

Don't forget, the existing Obj-C codebase isn't all 99p iOS games or nifty little Mac utilities. How much effort do you think Adobe would have to put in to rewrite their Creative Cloud suite in a new language? Is there any business case for a ground-up rewrite of industry standard video editor Final Cut Pro?

These, and others, are utterly huge amounts of extremely complex code, and Apple's platform needs them. Don't expect to see Obj-C support eliminated in less than the time it takes to rewrite all such apps from scratch, or introduce replacements that take their markets.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Telling developers "we know better than you which tools you should use" is unwise...

Yet that's what Apple do. If you want to develop for iOS or the Mac App Store, you have to play by Apple's rules. If at some point in the future Apple decide they are going to phase out support for Objective-C (and they aren't just going to drop it overnight) then they will. And people will accept it and learn Swift if they haven't already.

Its easy to see which way the ball is rolling. They've been working on Swift for about 4 years as far as I'm aware and many of the recent advances in Objective-C and LLVM have also been geared towards the eventual release of Swift I believe. They obviously decided that they had advanced Objective-C as much as they could with the limitations of it being built on C.

As soon as new developer technologies and APIs start being geared towards Swift rather than Objective-C in a way that makes backwards compatibility difficult, they'll start to phase it out and it won't take that long either. The vast majority of iOS/Mac developers are going to learn Swift and I think most will welcome the change.

Don't get me wrong, I've grown to like Objective-C over the years but I'll be the first to admit there's probably some kind of "stockholm syndrome" about my like for it. Its still early days for Swift, I'm excited to see where Apple go with it.

No doubt there will be some who resist the change and refuse to learn Swift...it will be their loss. They'll become like those people who still write classic ASP in VBScript.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Which is why Apple haven't done that. As they explicitly stated during the keynote, you can use Obj-C/Obj-C++ freely alongside Swift.

For now. In 5 years time? I suspect not.

[NickFitz]

Yes, I know. But TCP thinks the fact Swift is released means they plan to phase out OBJ-C and that's what I am responding to... to be fair the fact you can use them interchangeably NOW doesn't mean they won't remove support but I still think it's very unlikely. OBJ-C is pretty much synonymous with Mac development.

Indeed. Apart from anything else, Apple have an Obj-C codebase that goes back over a quarter of a century (all those APIs are prefixed "NS" because they come from the NeXT OS, NeXTStep). There isn't any real business value in rewriting the entire platform in a new language just because it's there, so they won't. Maybe all new development will be in Swift, but it'll take a very long time before the entire platform has become like Trigger's mop.

There's also little downside to continuing support: they went about this whole thing by first creating the solid underpinnings for multiple language support by creating LLVM, and only then made Swift. (The lead guy who did LLVM then moved on to create Swift, in fact.) The reason they invested that time and effort at the start will have been because of their own need to support legacy code as much as their customers'.

[d000hg]

Which is why Apple haven't done that. As they explicitly stated during the keynote, you can use Obj-C/Obj-C++ freely alongside Swift.

Yes, I know. But TCP thinks the fact Swift is released means they plan to phase out OBJ-C and that's what I am responding to... to be fair the fact you can use them interchangeably NOW doesn't mean they won't remove support but I still think it's very unlikely. OBJ-C is pretty much synonymous with Mac development.

[NickFitz]

I was about to say the same thing. The sheer amount of work people have spent becoming expert in OBJ-C is gigantic. Telling developers "we know better than you which tools you should use" is unwise... many many developers prefer C-style languages to something like Python, or vice versa. Forcing people to work in a single paradigm is daft.

Which is why Apple haven't done that. As they explicitly stated during the keynote, you can use Obj-C/Obj-C++ freely alongside Swift.

[d000hg]

From what I understand they are ABI compatible so there is no reason why objective C continuing to exist should be a barrier to innovation as far as I can see.

I was about to say the same thing. The sheer amount of work people have spent becoming expert in OBJ-C is gigantic. Telling developers "we know better than you which tools you should use" is unwise... many many developers prefer C-style languages to something like Python, or vice versa. Forcing people to work in a single paradigm is daft.

[MicrosoftBob]

I watched the keynote, but I didn't see any point in mentioning it on here, as all that happens is the usual people squawking "OMG APPLE ARE SAYING THEY INVENTED FLAPPY BIRD!!???! THEY DIDN'T!!!1!1! I KNOW SOMEBODY WHO USED FLAPPY BIRD IN 2012!!!ONE!"

FTFY

[doodab]

I will be interested to see how they handle the inevitable attempts to implement swift compilers on other platforms.

[NickFitz]

I watched the keynote, but I didn't see any point in mentioning it on here, as all that happens is the usual people squawking "OMG APPLE ARE SAYING THEY INVENTED ELECTRICITY!!???! THEY DIDN'T!!!1!1! I KNOW SOMEBODY WHO USED ELECTRICITY IN 1998!!!ONE!"

[doodab]

Just my opinion, but based on the fact that Apple don't tend to keep old technologies round for any longer than they need to, especially if it creates a barrier to further innovation/development. It may be several years before they are ready to drop Objective C for good, but it will happen. Probably on iOS first, where Apple have full control of the platform.

From what I understand they are ABI compatible so there is no reason why objective C continuing to exist should be a barrier to innovation as far as I can see.