Hacker News Reader

Comment by pjbrunet | Hacker News Reader

One day, nobody will remember Objective-C.

Let Apple have its 15 minutes of fame.

As someone recently noted in the discussion of Swift, Objective-C is basically older than the CD-ROM. I'd say the language has had several decades of life, not 15 minutes of fame.

(Actually, it appears Objective-C is certainly older than the CD-ROM and is from about the same era as the audio CD.)

Looks like Objective C finally surpassed Fortran and Cobol somewhere in 2011. Good luck to you in the future ;-)

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=%22objective%20C%22%2...

And the CDROM wasn't a blip in history between the Compact Cassette and now? BTW the CD-ROM is still way more popular than Objective-C.

http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=cd%20rom%2C%20objecti...

But nice try anyway.

Funny thing, you saying "15 minutes," since Objective-C had existed for 15 years by the first time Apple used it. Eighteen years ago.

As a multi-decade PHP developer, I would have guessed you'd be used to people deriding your language of choice and, based on that experience, developed enough common sense to not make a fool of yourself so publicly. I guess I expect too much of people.

I don't expect much wisdom from the youngsters here.

If you were even able to read back then, nobody had heard of Objective-C until your idol Steve touched it with his golden finger. If you remember, Apple was a sad joke of a failure from the 80s till the iPod launched. And I'm sure Objective-C was really integral to the success of the Apple IIe and the iPod.

Thanks for proving my point.

You're clearly ignorant of the history, and should stop commenting on it until you actually learn some.

In particular: Objective-C was created in 1983 and its first big success was when NeXT decided to adopt it as its main language for the NeXTstep operating system in 1988. And guess who was CEO of NeXT? That's right, none other than "your idol Steve".

So unless you're saying that nobody had heard of Objective-C until 1988, which is a pretty reasonable timeframe for a language invented in 1983, you're way off base.

Even if your assumption Objective-C was only relevant after the release of iOS was correct, then Objective-C was still relevant since 2007. That's 7 years.

Do you think I literally meant 15 minutes? 7 years is nothing.

Check this out. Objective-C wasn't even Apple's first choice.

"Apple CEO Gil Amelio started negotiations to buy Be Inc., but negotiations stalled when Be CEO Jean-Louis Gassée wanted $200 million; Apple was unwilling to offer any more than $125 million. Apple's board of directors decided NeXTSTEP was a better choice and purchased NeXT in 1996 for $429 million, bringing back Apple co-founder Steve Jobs." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeOS

So you're all using Objective-C because Apple couldn't afford to buy the OS they wanted. Kinda sad!

So Apple is willing to pay $125 million for Be, Gassée wants $200 million, Apple ends up buying NeXT for $429 million (at least $319 million in cash, according to the citations), and your conclusion is that Apple "couldn't afford to buy [Be]"?

> So you're all using Objective-C because Apple couldn't afford to buy the OS they wanted. Kinda sad!

In the early Mac OS X days, developers could choose between Objective-C and Java as the Mac OS X main language, the majority went for Objective-C and the JavaBridge was dropped.

NeXT was a reverse acquisition. The company known today as "Apple Inc." is essentially the result of NeXT being paid $400 million to acquire Apple.

It's a language. Get over it.

The way I remember it is that it was the iMac that really started the Apple turnaround, in 1998.

@mikeash I don't need the history, I lived through that era. Did you even read the whole Wikipedia entry?

"The NeXT Computer was not a great commercial success" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT_Computer

It might not have been a "commercial success", but one has to appreciate the irony of you arguing against the impact of NeXT while using a medium that was invented/first developed on this platform:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:First_Web_Server.jpg

Disclaimer: I am younger than any technology mentioned in this thread.

Wow I lost 20 hitpoints (and falling rapidly) over this opinion. Did I touch a nerve?

I can just imagine $AAPL shareholders quivering. "What is this guy talking about?"

Betting it all on Objective-C, a unknown language based on a superseded language. Steve was so ballsy. Google at least had a clue. Java + Android actually makes sense.

Deleted comment

How about you use your real name and explain why you dislike my opinion?

It's a fact people would love to write apps for the iPhone in other languages. But that's not possible because Apple is a tyrannical company. Do you endorse this tyranny and do you believe it's sustainable? I don't believe it's sustainable and I believe history agrees with me, based on my 30 years of following programming languages.

Who is the child now?

Your opinions are fine, but some of your facts are incorrect.

http://xamarin.com

http://www.rubymotion.com

http://www.appcelerator.com

http://unity3d.com

http://developer.coronalabs.com

Just want to point out that you're complaining about Apple being a tyrannical company, while at the same time you're praising Google for using Java.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com