Will Microsoft support Objective-C and Cocoa?

[roosevelt]

Hey All,

 

You guys must've seen the demo Microsoft did on the Build and they demo'ed two things in particular. First was some example Objective-C codes compiled in Visual Studio and the second was the "Candy Crush" game running on the Windows phone! The demos show that iOS apps now can be converted for Windows phones, etc. I believe that also include iPad apps since iPads also use iOS.

 

However, did anywhere Microsoft also mention that their Objective-C support now includes the Cocoa framework? I would love to create apps that work both on Windows and a Mac and look gorgeous! Not that you cannot achieve the same result with something like Java but every craftsman has his favorite tools!

 

Visual Studio for Mac: https://code.visualstudio.com/      

[DrAwesome23]

Why can't objective-c just die already . 

[PGHammer]

  On 18/05/2015 at 22:06, DrAwesome23 said:

Why can't objective-c just die already . 

Ever heard of Xamarin?

 

Xamarin is available as a Visual Studio (2013 and later) add-in - and right now.

 

Programming for iOS/OS X is why Objective-C is alive - it is the only programming language that iOS and OS X have in common.  Also, if you are going to use Cocoa, you MUST use Objective-C.  (Basically, blame Apple.)

[kozukumi]

Visual Studio Code is basically just a Microsoft fork of the Atom editor from Github. Nothing to get too excited about. It is just a fancy text editor not a Visual Studio replacement.

 

As for Obj-C on Windows, I do not believe Microsoft have given much information out publically regarding this yet.

[+virtorio MVC]

  On 18/05/2015 at 19:00, roosevelt said:

Hey All,

 

You guys must've seen the demo Microsoft did on the Build and they demo'ed two things in particular. First was some example Objective-C codes compiled in Visual Studio and the second was the "Candy Crush" game running on the Windows phone! The demos show that iOS apps now can be converted for Windows phones, etc. I believe that also include iPad apps since iPads also use iOS.

 

However, did anywhere Microsoft also mention that their Objective-C support now includes the Cocoa framework? I would love to create apps that work both on Windows and a Mac and look gorgeous! Not that you cannot achieve the same result with something like Java but every craftsman has his favorite tools!

 

Visual Studio for Mac: https://code.visualstudio.com/      

http://channel9.msdn.com/events/Build/2015/3-610

 

At about the 51 minute mark they talk about what API's their comparability API layer will support, which includes: APIs for games, UIKit, CoreAnimation, CoreGraphics, CoreText and other important iOS APIs. 

[Guest]

  On 18/05/2015 at 22:22, kozukumi said:

Visual Studio Code is basically just a Microsoft fork of the Atom editor from Github. Nothing to get too excited about. It is just a fancy text editor not a Visual Studio replacement.

 

 

No, it is not. This has been debunked a billion times by now.

[kozukumi]

  On 19/05/2015 at 17:45, elenarie said:

No, it is not. This has been debunked a billion times by now.

 

It is based on electron which is basically Atom.

[Obry]

I don't think you'll see Objective-C support in VS or Windows but I could be wrong. If you want to write quality cross-platform apps then look at Xamarin. It enables you to do just that with C# (which is in mine and many other people's opinion much more pleasurable to use than Obj-C)...

[Active.]

  On 18/05/2015 at 22:18, PGHammer said:

 if you are going to use Cocoa, you MUST use Objective-C.  (Basically, blame Apple.)

Swift? Plus, there's lots of bridges available. Even AppleScript in Yosemite can access lots of Cocoa APIs out of the box nowadays, e.g. most of Foundation and even a lot of AppKit

 

 

  On 21/05/2015 at 18:16, Obry said:

I don't think you'll see Objective-C support in VS or Windows but I could be wrong. 

 

I think you are.

[kozukumi]

I think with how popular iOS and Android are and Microsoft's new business model of getting users on their services regardless of platform means we will see support in Visual Studio for Objective-C, Swift and Java. They already have working Clang support for the Android NDK and Apple uses Clang/LLVM for Objective-C and Swift so some of the work is already done and plugging the JDK in shouldn't be that complicated. The biggest question mark is over if they can build Java debugging into Visual Studio. For Clang/LLVM it isn't all that complicated as the Clang and LLVM teams are already working with Microsoft to support Microsoft's C++ runtime so Microsoft are already up to speed working with Clang.

 

What I don't think we will see is Microsoft extending their current compilers to support targeting anything other than MS platforms.

 

I wouldn't be surprised to see another SKU of Visual Studio targeted at Mobile App Developers. I also wouldn't be surprised to see more Visual Studio tools coming to OS X and Linux whether that be as a separate product to Visual Studio Code or enhancements to Code to make it more of an IDE than a programmer's text editor.

 

One thing is for sure though. Microsoft are serious about OS X, iOS and Android. Microsoft thought we would always be on Windows but they screwed up Vista just as Apple was making OS X pretty good then they messed up Windows 8 by letting Sinofsky run wild with his Jobs-complex. They totally misjudged the iPhone and were way too slow bringing a decent phone platform to fruition. Some would say they still don't have a decent phone platform, consumers certainly seem to think so. I think Microsoft's change in direction towards services is the right idea. Getting people on OneDrive and Outlook.com is a massive priority. Getting businesses on Azure is going well for them as Azure is now the second biggest revenue stream for them.

 

It is certainly interesting times.