On 4/12/10 9:02 AM, Stephen Guerin wrote:
Apple is dictating apps must be written in approved languages.
"Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or
JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code
written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link
against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to
Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility
layer or tool are prohibited)."
I understand part of the reasoning for this is that they believe
(plausibly, I think) that, more often than not, intermediate software
layers tend to gum things up, especially in the case of hardware that
has very limited resources. Apple doesn't want to have apps that are
slow just because of poorly-thought-out and bloated cross-platform
middleware they don't control, nor do they want application developers
to lock-in to some less interesting subset of their API feature set for
the convenience of middleware developers and users. And of course, why
would they want to encourage developers to consider non-Apple platforms?
Marcus
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