

Hey Adobe:Cross compile Objective C to run on Flash Player  - arpit
http://www.arpitonline.com/blog/2010/04/10/alright-adobe-heres-what-you-do-cross-compile-objective-c-to-run-on-the-flash-player/

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watty
This would require some major development time and give devs another reason to
work on the iPhone. IMO, they would be better off devoting the time in
solidifying Flash 10.1 mobile and compatibility across non-iPhone devices.

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wallflower
Adobe's target audience is people who _don't_ want to program in Objective C.
By writing a mega .lib to allow cross-compilation, you're not reaching those
customers. I really think there are not that many iPhone developers who want
to port their code automatically to Flash.

Having worked with both Flash and Cocoa/Objective C, I believe this idea would
be near impossible to execute - the platforms are so dissimilar. I start to
get a headache just thinking how you would translate Cocoa to ActionScript
3/The Stage.

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arpit
They have already done a bit of work in this department with the whole Alchemy
project: <http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/alchemy/>

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wallflower
Interesting. Even though it is just translation of pure server-oriented code,
it is a nice start. Of course, I can make the argument that if they can write
a program that translates one platform to another - they should go after the
holy grail of game development - write once, perform spectacularly anywhere -
and make hundreds of millions.

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daeken
"You need the Flash IDE to cross compile to ActionScript bytecode so your
market is secured again."

No, no you don't. Adobe and many others have free AS compilers. Not to mention
that this would require implementing a ton of APIs. It could work, but there's
no way Adobe would go for this, or be able to keep up with Apple's
development.

Edit: Missed the 'cross' part of the original statement. However, ignoring the
first two sentences of my comment, the rest still stands.

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gte910h
Compatability layers specifically forbidden...

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arpit
But it wont be a compatibility layer, it would be no different than using a
third party Objective C library. Apple cant really mandate all code for an app
be written by the developer team itself. Basically its all Objective C code
and some Adobe tool cross compiles it to bytecode that the Flash Player can
play

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benologist
It still has to be "originally written" in x.

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avdempsey
No...you originally write in Objective-C, using an Objective-C framework
designed to make cross-compiling to Flash bytecode easier. I think Apple would
be a-ok with its competing platforms getting filled with ported apps. You'll
still need to program in Objective-C though, and it's hard to see what
advantage Adobe's existing apps would bring to Objective-C development.

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MichaelGG
It's pretty simple for Apple to get around. They can wait until someone does
something like this, and then go update their agreement to say cross-platform
ui toolkits are not allowed to be used.

