

Apple relaxes 3.2.2 rule, allowing Lisp and other languages in apps - maxharris
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/06/11/apple_relaxes_ios_sdk_to_allow_lua_but_block_flash.html

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praptak
"Notwithstanding the foregoing, with Apple’s prior written consent, an
Application may use embedded interpreted code in a limited way if such use is
solely for providing minor features or functionality that are consistent with
the intended and advertised purpose of the Application."

Apple's prior written consent? Limited way? Solely for providing minor
features of functionality?

IPhone developers, I laugh at you derisively. All of the five guys that
actually made some money while sharecropping for Apple need not respond.

~~~
PieSquared
Well, what's a better platform, then?

I develop for the iPhone because in some ways, it's a "sure" way to make
money. Not necessarily a _lot_ of money, but still. Other than Android, which
has its own problems, what other platforms exist that give as wide an audience
willing to spend money on your apps?

It's all cheery and nice to say "Apple sucks, hahah iPhone developers", but
what's are other options for those of us who cannot work at a normal job and
do not have the resources, time, or dedication to invest our lives in a
startup?

(Serious question, by the way, not just bashing your comment here.)

~~~
cheald
I think the subtext there is that he was saying that Android is the direction
developers should lean towards. The mobile applications market is very
squarely coming down to Apple versus Android. There are other big players in
the mobile devices space, but not really in the mobile applications space, or
at least not to the degree that Apple and Android are. Apple is where the
money is today, but there are lots of folks that feel that those winds are
changing - that Apple is starting to really start to make developers
discontent enough to abandon their platform, while Android is finally starting
to catch up to the point that it can compete as a first-class citizen.

~~~
hboon
They still have alot to catch up with. Start with allowing developers from
more countries to put up paid apps on Market.

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pierrefar
What kind of reassurance do developers get that this policy will not change
yet again in the future?

~~~
JulianMorrison
You want predictability and a company that won't react to destroy your
business model because it's a little inconvenient? Develop for Android.

Other than that, the only thing you can do is make yourself so very useful to
Apple that they'll grant you an exemption if they decide to turn on a dime
again.

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mahmud
Where does it say "Lisp" in that article?

~~~
jm4
The article headline mentions Lua. The submitter could have confused it with
Lisp. Or maybe the submitter changed it thinking a Lisp headline would draw
more attention. In any case, the rule change could potentially include Lisp
even if it wasn't specifically mentioned. Personally, I dislike it when
submitters change headlines, but I don't feel like anything is misrepresented
in this case.

~~~
Tamerlin
The article also describes Lua as a library, so it may just have been simple
ignorance. People occasionally ask me what Lisp is when they see the book on
my desk while passing by.

~~~
mahmud
Just came back from the DMV and had a man lean over to read the title of my
book more carefully; it had "Adversarial Information Retrieval" on the cover,
collected conference papers. You could tell from the look on his face that he
understood what each individual word meant, but not their combination (I was
itching to enlighten, only if he asked.)

Worse than Lisp is casual mathematics. People just can't grok that mathematics
can be "read" by the lay non-mathematician. They know 'mathematician' and
'physicist', and they also know that engineers use calculus, but the rest of
mathematics looks exotic and hard to them. Even when the math is used for the
sake of brevity, a more concise and more malleable representation of mental
models (objects.)

The next time someone asks me to multiply large integers in my head just
because I read stuff with greek letters, I will substitute variables for their
values and solve the general case, starting with a primitive ZF construction
of the natural numbers ;-)

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moron4hire
So basically proving this was always about killing Flash.

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mkramlich
So now there might be hope again for Python as well.

~~~
cstross
I think it'd be interesting to see someone write a letter to Apple to see how
far they'll bend.

For example:

"An educational app to teach programming in python. The app consists of a code
editor and source-level debugger, an online tutorial book, and example code
for the user to edit and modify. Source code is stored in a read-only sandbox;
any user-edited material must be saved to DropBox or an iDisk. Some built-in
language functionality is disabled, to comply with App store policy (notably
fork()/exec(), filesystem access outside the sandbox, most POSIX IPC, etc).
Interpreter will only execute while app is open (no backgrounding)."

In other words, something like "Learning Python" as an ebook, with
<http://www.skulpt.org/> (Skulpt) wired up to it, possibly with some IDE-style
bells and whistles.

~~~
PieSquared
Well, I just sent almost exactly that email (reworded, of course, not actually
copied-pasted). We'll see what they say.

~~~
cstross
If they say "yes", and you go and write the app, I'll buy it.

(I'm not any kind of developer, this decade, but I'd like to keep my hand in
by learning something new.)

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mistermann
Can anyone comment on whether this affects MonoTouch?

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jrockway
You still aren't permitted to write your whole app in a real language, though,
of course.

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ptomato
I'm not sure from what standpoint, exactly, Objective C isn't a "real"
language.

~~~
jrockway
Manual memory management, no MOP, etc.

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ptomato
Boy, game developers _hate_ real languages.

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jrockway
Especially the ones with 30 years of accumulated C libraries.

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pygy_
Objective C is a strict superset of C, and garbage collection is optional (I'm
not even sure that GC is enabled on iOS).

~~~
hboon
GC is not available on iOS.

