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Comment by AlwaysBCoding | Hacker News Reader

I think it's terrible. Parsing a JSON response into a Swift object takes a full-day to figure out when it's literally just JSON.parse(response) in any other language. You can't pass immutable structures (structs) into NSNotifications and I can't figure out why. It's confusing and poorly documented, and a complete chore to use.

React Native is a godsend.

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>Parsing a JSON response into a Swift object takes a full-day to figure out when it's literally just JSON.parse(response) in any other language.

Something which has nothing to do with the language.

Here's how you do it with a popular Swift lib:

let json = JSON(data: response)

if let userName = json[0]["user"]["name"].string{ .... }

Eh, the awful state of their respective standard libraries seems to come up quite a bit when people are critiquing OCaml or D.

What on earth are you talking about? Parsing a JSON response in Swift is basically the same as it is in Objective C:

  let parsed: AnyObject? = NSJSONSerialization.JSONObjectWithData(data,
    options: NSJSONReadingOptions.AllowFragments,
    error:&parseError)

This is truly not meant to be a snarky comment, but why is it so overtly verbose? I left Java years ago b/c it was making my fingers arthritic it seems. It doesn't look like much fun. Sure, IDEs do autocomplete, but still requires parsing by the human eye.

I'm sure you get used to it. Every language looks horrible the first time, then you learn to live with it and maybe love it, but on first glance that looks pretty awful.

Objective-C tends to err on the side of readability. Considering that source code is read many more times than it is written it's something I personally agree with. But yeah it's something you do get used to.

Java's problem is that C# exists and is a more expressive language.

But this isn't readable at all.

If you compare it JSON.parse(x) or fromJSON x it's just awful.

The idea that more verbose == more readable is so annoying. It seems to be especially egregious in languages like Ada, which look like this to me (an uninitiated):

    okay here comes a function definition get ready
      function MyFun() begin
        return 1
      end begin
      end MyFun
    end function okay we are done

Verbosity is part of the design philosophy behind Objective-C.

How is React "native" again? I'm not sure I understand how something not written in Swift or Obj. C is 'native.' This is only 30% snark; I actually don't know the answer. React is from the same people that thought html5 was a good idea for a mobile application right? I am not bashing React; I am only curious how it's considered native. Does it have official support from the iOS APIs? Can you integrate Objective C libraries with React? I just don't get it.

I also don't get how a JSON parse takes half a day. If you know the language it shouldn't take that much time. If you don't know the language then a complaint wouldn't be intellectually honest would it?

I don't think the parent was saying React is native. He's referring to a project called React Native, which provides native rendering (eg., <Button> binds to a native button implemented in ObjC) in a PhoneGap/Cordova-style wrapper that lets you implement bridged access to native code (to talk to Apple-specific APIs or to implement performance-sensitive code, for example). In such an app, you would be able to get a native "look and feel" despite the application being written mostly in JS.

As far as i understand. It uses a javascript runtime on its own thread to parse "instructions" to native components dynamically. To answer your questions. yes, yes, yesno.

Reacts philosophy is to learn once write everywhere. If you know reactjs then it is just as easy to write react native as it is exactly the same (clear and concise) but with different api's available. The instructions are written in javascript the rendering can be done in dom, obejective-c, java.. etc.etc.

Would it be intellectually honest to place a 30% snark if you don't know the language?

They mean "React Native"[0], not React itself :)

[0] http://reactnative.com

Have you tried SwiftyJSON ?

https://github.com/SwiftyJSON/SwiftyJSON

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