Re: Apple to open source Swift later this year with support for iOS, OS X, and Linux

[Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller]

Am 08.06.2015 um 21:13 schrieb Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf 
<lars.sonchocky.helldorf@gmail.com>:

> In case you don't know already …
> 
> http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/06/08/apple-to-open-source-swift-later-this-year-with-support-for-ios-os-x-and-linux
> 

Interesting move,

But I doubt that Gregory’s efforts for Phoenix were the driving factor as 
someone
wrote on Twitter…

Anyways, I still prefer Objective-C 1.0 for its expressive power and 
readability (Obj-C 2.0 is
IMHO a little less readable for me and SWIFT even more).

But, the language itself is becoming less and less important since the 
frameworks (${somethingKit)
are the key to an OS. And OS X / iOS is getting more and more every year.

Well, I know what I am talking about. Not yet in the public until now. I have 
rewritten some of
the important frameworks of QuantumSTEP in PHP.

PHP????
Are you kidding???

No. As said, the language isn’t that important. The architecture of the 
${something}Kit is.

And I am using it to make my Web Pages now. Writing .app bundles using the same 
high level
abstraction of NSView, NSUserDefaults, NSBundle, NSFileManager, etc. Using the 
same logic as a
desktop .app. No need to fiddle around with <div> and <span> etc. Just once to 
get the AppKit.php
working. And theming is done by some CSS.

The NSGraphicsContext has become a NSHTMLGraphicsContext and it generates HTML 
to control
the remote display server (commonly known as “Browser”). Instead of Display 
Postscript or
Cairo or X11-Protocol.

Yes, there are some tricks (and limitations) to squeeze HTTP&HTML into the 
Foundation/AppKit
metaphor but it works astonishingly well and the key benefit is to keep the 
code for .app bundles
small.

Some code can be found here:

        
http://git.goldelico.com/?p=mySTEP.git;a=blob;f=AppKit/Sources/AppKit.php;hb=HEAD

So back to the topic: SWIFT will attract more developers to the MacOS / iOS 
ecosystem. But detract
some from GNUstep (unless GNUstep gets SWIFT bindings). Since people like to 
express themselves
in their favorite language. And use common building blocks. Like LEGO is 
worldwide but the user manual
is translated into many mother languages…

BR,
Nikolaus