Sent from my iPhone
> <off-topic>
> Cocoa currently hides the boilerplate for all of these wonderful constructs
> behind amazingly effective runtime acrobatics. This fits perfectly into
> Objective-C, and it also works very well in Swift. But such features could be
> in better harmony with Swift's unique set of language constructs if their
> boilerplate was hidden behind amazingly effective **compile-time** acrobatics
> instead.
>
> Such compile-time acrobatics are hard to perform today, and it is possible
> that the ability to create such systems will forever remain an advanced
> skill, just like forging runtime magic requires advanced skills in
> Objective-C.
... rantish...
I am still not convinced that even the best compiler can fully replace what a
powerful runtime can provide no matter the acrobatics you put in in terms of
compiler introduced utility code/constructs or the code analysis efforts you
can put in at compile time... unless that work essentially replaces the
runtime. Do we want to help coders with a great compiler and static analysis
tools? Yes! Do we need to castrate the runtime to achieve this making it
physically impossible for developers to escape the controlled environment we
strictly want them to live in? I do not think so and we may regret the results
once everything including UI and app frameworks are all Swifty™ (it is starting
to get marketing firm icky when a discussion is stopped when this word is
invoked or inflamed by a disagreement on who is more swiftly orthodox). I think
that without holding technology back due to fear, we should not proceed only
with the assumption that old way == worst thing ever while new way == it is
new and young, it must be good.
Objective-C did not survive and thrive in Cocoa for so many years completely in
spite of its many many deficiencies as sometimes it seems on this list
(Objective-C being put down more than necessary IMHO... Swift does not need
this kind of sometimes slightly biased comparison to be appreciated in full,
but it can stand on its own merits).
Maybe the reason we like Cocoa/Cocoa Touck/AppKit/UIKit/etc... is precisely
because of the beautiful balance it strikes between (sometimes leaning more on
developers opting-in) safety and versatility allowing good code to be produced
and tested quickly thus allowing easier prototyping, refactoring, and iterative
development.
Sorry for the even more off topic bit and thank you to those people who read
this.
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