Re: Re: Thoughts on Objective-C++
Re: Re: Thoughts on Objective-C++
- Subject: Re: Re: Thoughts on Objective-C++
- From: Turtle Creek Software via Cocoa-dev <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2019 14:31:17 -0500
I made a rather bold statement about Cocoa being doomed. Here's some
background on where it came from.
Apple and Microsoft are both working on next-generation app development
platforms, with the goal of having one dev library for desktop, tablet,
phone and anything else. Meanwhile, Mozilla also is working to extend
WebAssembly from web to plain old CPUs. There may be others.
Here's Microsoft's page on WinUI:
https://github.com/microsoft/microsoft-ui-xaml/blob/master/docs/roadmap.md
It has details. Timelines. ETAs. Links to GitHub projects. C++ support.
Places to give feedback. Backwards compatibility. All things that make life
easier for developers.
Meanwhile, here is Apple's dev page about SwiftUI:
https://developer.apple.com/xcode/swiftui/
It sure looks pretty, but it's totally PR. The bit at the bottom presents
SwiftUI as a mature and amazing technology for all Apple products (no
desktop shown, but there's a laptop Mac). Simple past experience (i.e.
cynicism) suggests that once there's a new tool, the old one is soon
deprecated and eventually killed. It made things like the dearth of
documentation and unchanged sample projects seem like foreshadowing.
There's no timeline listed, but rumors are 2020 for ARM chips. That would
be a good time for a SwiftUI pivot. If true, Cocoa is the new Carbon.
We have to plan 5 or 10 years ahead, because it takes that long to create
an app and sell it for long enough to get payback. Unfortunately, with
Apple that means guessing the future from rumor and marketing hype.
Even if I'm wrong on this, the uncertainty makes any further Cocoa
development more risky. On the opposite side, the fact that MFC is still a
valid part of the blueprint makes us more confident. It means we can keep
using C++ as a respected part of the ecosystem, and gradually update the
GUI when WinUI 3 is mature.
I definitely do not mean to start a MS vs Apple flame war. Microsoft sucks
in many, many ways. Their WinUI blueprint may change suddenly, or it may
end up being awful. Apple and MS are both trillion-dollar companies that
will do whatever it takes to grow even bigger. TurtleSoft is just an ant,
trying not to be stomped by either of them.
Casey McDermott
TurtleSoft.com
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