back to article RoboVM stirs up another helping of Java for iPhone

The free RoboVM, timidly launched as version 0.0.1, claims to bridge Java code into Objective C - including the native iOS Cocoa Touch APIs - providing greater portability to mobile apps. The release announcement boasts: RoboVM makes it possible to develop native iOS apps that use the CocoaTouch APIs in Java using familiar …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why would you ever want to do this?

    Really. Why?

    Learn and use the language and tools best suited to the problem you are trying to solve and the platform you are trying to solve it on.

    1. Steve I

      Re: Why would you ever want to do this?

      Got to agree - Objective-C syntax isn't *that* different from Java and the hard bit is learning all the API's and what they can do, which you're going to have to do to take full advantage of the platform, not matter what language you code it in.

      Could be usefull though if you've 1,000s of line of core application Java code (the 'model' of your MVC) which would just be a pain to recode in Obj-C.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Why would you ever want to do this?

      Look at some thing like http://libgdx.badlogicgames.com/

      You can write a game in Java and deploy it to multiple platforms including ios..

      I guess you have never actually developed anything but most of the time you don't want to have to write the same stuff twice.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "I guess you have never actually developed anything"

        You guess wrong. And the joy of writing something twice in different languages, is that the second time around, you make it better and learn something. Here's my random guess bases on not knowing you at all: I guess you're one of those people who never revisits or indeed finishes his code, because why bother?

        See what I did there?

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "I guess you have never actually developed anything"

          >And the joy of writing something twice in different languages,

          > is that the second time around, you make it better and learn something.

          And now you have two code bases to maintain when you could have improved just one of them.. and you could have spent more time on the single codebase and potentially improved more of it. I've seen projects with totally separate code bases for 2 platforms and you end up with some stuff working in one and some in the other and if the project is evolving there aren't very many points in time when the codebases are equal to each other.

          >I guess you're one of those people who never revisits or indeed finishes his code,

          I never revisit my code because I write it well first time instead of blaming the language all the time ;).

    3. vic 4

      Re: Why would you ever want to do this?

      Straight of the top off my head.

      1. Maybe you already have a large java code base that you can reuse.

      2. Maybe you consider Java to have better tool support.

      3. Maybe your developers know Java and it's not worth the effort reskilling/hiring for one platform.

      4. Maybe you want to write multi platform applications.

      5. Maybe you don't want to buy each of your developers another development machine (and a very expensive one at that).

      BTW, I've been writing obj-c for OSX and iOS for many years now and given the choice I'd prefer java but that is my personal preference. I also have a fairly large database of development time for various kinds of tasks on different platforms/languages/developer experience and java is for most things much quicker to develop, closely followed by .net.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Cross Platform ftw

    Why anyone would want that abomination of a closed platform that is iOS to succeed it beyond me. People complain about the dominance of Windows on the desktop, but at least you can run anything you want on it. While Apple continue to refuse to allow side-loading of apps, they will continue to be the most anti-consumer company in the industry.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Cross Platform ftw

      Hmm, so you've not seen Windows RT, either, presumably?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Cross Platform ftw

        > Hmm, so you've not seen Windows RT, either, presumably?

        Yes, I've seen it, and I want it to either change or die or horrible death.

    2. the-it-slayer
      Facepalm

      Re: Cross Platform ftw - normally = crappy apps

      Why would you come up with this crap? Makes no difference whether they restrict app installation or not. Developers can start to use these tool to their advantage. Nothing stopping people converting their apps and reselling on the iOS platform. You just seem to forget iOS users (I think - correct me if I'm wrong anyone) are the most app savvy users and has a huge potential revenue stream for devs.

      Anyway, most converted games, applications and such like are scrap. Still these compilers aren't 100% and the app converted needs tweaking to take advantage of other features not available of other OS/language.

      Not difficult to understand.

      1. vic 4

        Re: Cross Platform ftw - normally = crappy apps

        It obviously depends on what your app does, but a number like 75% is quiet a realistic amount of code that is purely business logic and if well designed should have not have any impact placed on it by the platform. There will be a good likely hood that the remaining 25% will have be specific platform related issues which again can be solved by design and platform specific implementations.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "abomination of a closed platform that is iOS"

      Don't be silly. Could you have written something more elegant than IOKit? Probably not.

  3. ShaggyDog
    Go

    Good at Java, don't know Objective-C - develop in Scala/Groovy?

    I wonder if this product cross-compiles Java source or if it cross-compiles the bytecode. If it's the byte code then it could be interesting with more productive languages that run on the JVM, say Scala.

    I'm about to make the leap from Java to mixed Java and Scala (etc) as I'm fed up to my back-teeth with the boiler-plate and excessive decomposition that Java requires/encourages.

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