Steve Jobs Says, "Fuck You Ruby Fanbois"
oppugn.us
oppugn.us
What is really going on is a war fought by proxy on the iPhone. The combatants are Adobe wanting to commoditize all platforms for their flash apps and Apple, who wants to keep the control of their platform. Ruby, Lisp (any), Haskell, Python, and Lua are not participants in the war, yet they got hit by the nuclear fallout.
The interesting question is how much Apple needs to do to piss off developers - which they need in their eco-system. While other platforms lags somewhat behind the iPhone, there is no doubt that the scales can tip quickly. I may be wrong, but I think rather few programmers make their pay from iPhone revenue streams.
This is a great analogy. The people that were vaporized by the atomic bombs probably didn't care enough about the cause they died for to die for it. But they didn't get to choose -- someone else chose for them.
That makes me sad.
If that's the case, you can still code in Ruby for the IPhone.
If not, maybe xmlvm can do the job (http://xmlvm.org/overview/)
The underlying device is severely limited in many ways. Programs are not composed of "blocks of memory". There are an infinite number of integers, not 2^64 of them. Etc.
It doesn't make much sense to structure functionality around these flawed assumptions unless you are absolutely sure your application's functionality is a subset of the computer's functionality. Since most iPhone applications let you do much more than just add numbers modulo 2^32, it makes sense that it should be built in terms of higher-level abstractions. Who cares if your app isn't "coded for the underlying machine". It works, and it's easy to add new features without breaking everything else!
(Some C-level abstractions are quite good, of course, like the function call stack. But a Scheme-like call graph is even more natural.)
The goal in creating software is for your program text to describe the solution to your problem. It's easier to do this in the "problem domain" instead of "C", so we have created abstractions that allow us to think at the high-level of "problem" instead of the low-level of "electrons being pushed around through semiconductors".
Anyway, if you want to use an unpopular language so you can think you're better than everyone else, why not use Haskell instead? At least that way you get type safety, fast automatic memory management, composable libraries, interactive development, portability, and a friendly irc channel to hang out on.
Oh yeah, because you're a luddite, not a programmer. Sorry, I forgot.
If by that colorful phrase you mean, "gem install rails". I'm pretty sure we ship a Rails product, and I'm pretty sure that we only issue people Macbooks running OSX, and I'm pretty sure he's wrong about that.
"Now, work with me people, I want to get "Fuck" on HN front page again: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1254189 .
Touching how he cares about us...
It's not that learning C is a big deal, it's that it contains a lot of unnecessary work and there are nicer (read: more convenient) languages to work in. Good Ruby developers will probably make good C developers, and bad ones will be obviously bad.
I guess Zed's not over having his feelings hurt by the Ruby community yet.
I give this one a 5/10 (although, I should give a bonus point for successfully getting "fuck" on the front page again, I guess).
Is this article supposed to be ridiculous ad-hominem, or is it sarcasm?
Well today, I am in love with Steve Jobs. He apparently agrees with me that these guys shouldn't be coding.
Flamebait, mostly. Sarcastic ? Not really, sarcasm implies some degree of subtlety.
I miss this site.
EDIT: Oh, it's Zed Shaw again. I'll continue in my delusional belief that blatant flamebait not authored by Zed Shaw would be flag'd to death by now.
do i want to? no.
The real issue isn't that they're forcing developers to use C. The real issue is that they're forcing developers to conform to an arbitrary standard.
If people can write apps in Lua or C# that build and run on the phone, and that meet Apple's quality standards to get into the App Store, why should they care? What business is it of Apple's to tell independent iPhone developers how to do their jobs?
So, if I were going to write a rant about this, I'd write one about assholes who are too nosy about how I use the stuff they sold me. That might just be me though.
Oh noes! I'm a full-time C programmer doing linux-based networking OS stuff and I call them staches! I am probably going to get beat up at work now. Than being said, I don't think I really ever use "stache" or "curly-brace" in actual conversation, its just sort of implied when necessary.
That dragging things around in Interface Builder and copy/pasting TableCell code off the web is more hardcore than a typical Ruby on Rails website is unfortunately not a realistic argument. That's why we have so many "haha, I farted" type apps.
Is it time for a flood of stories about how Erlang is no longer permitted on the iPhone, hint hint?
People should program in C because some people programing in ruby are morons ? Great argument ...
I really don't see any valid argument why knowing C is such an enlightening experience (I would argue it is not).
C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot
of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much
easier to generate total and utter crap with it. Quite frankly, even if
the choice of C were to do *nothing* but keep the C++ programmers out,
that in itself would be a huge reason to use C.
Is Apple a totalitarian government with Steve Jobs as it's dictator that was made possible by a decade of Ruby-like fanboyism? I don't know. Maybe, or maybe not. But is it funny to observe how all the Ruby fanboys squirm with this new Apple development? It sure is.
Those topics are really important in Objective C..