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Comment by jcromartie | Hacker News Reader

There was no JVM to start with, and there was already a no-interpreters clause. They had a long way to go.

Interpreters were fine as long as the user could not download or create code. A lot of games use a scripting language (Lua, Python, and other proprietary languages (SCUMM for the Monkey Island remake, for example).

... and there's a CLR port of Clojure, so the scenario was not out of reach (see Mono Touch)

Some apps have interpreters, yes, but they are in violation of the agreement.

A truckload of games have interpreters, coming either from indie developers or major publishers. None of these will be able to update their games to the new SDK.

Regarding the interpreters, I used to be right, but it changed at one point. Quoting Henk Boom on the Lua mailing list:

[[ I thought this was already the case. From an excerpt of the agreement on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_OS#Java

"No interpreted code may be downloaded or used in an Application except for code that is interpreted and run by Apple’s Documented APIs and built-in interpreter(s)."

I've read that the "or" in "downloaded or used" was originally an "and," but that Apple changed it at some point. ]]

> None of these will be able to update their games to the new SDK.

The ban on interpreters significantly predates the new SDK.

While Clojure is currently targeting the JVM and CLR as compilation targets, there are longer-term plans to target LLVM and other platforms as well. There's no reason a compiler couldn't produce native code.

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