{"id":257,"date":"2009-02-18T18:18:20","date_gmt":"2009-02-18T23:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vgable.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/18\/competing-software-engineering-approaches\/"},"modified":"2009-02-18T18:18:23","modified_gmt":"2009-02-18T23:18:23","slug":"competing-software-engineering-approaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vgable.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/18\/competing-software-engineering-approaches\/","title":{"rendered":"Competing Software Engineering Approaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tim Bray<\/a>,<\/p>\n

\n

…Palm’s approach is
\nradically different from both Android’s and Apple’s. Since they’re all here
\nat more or less the same time, running the
\nsame Web browser<\/a> on roughly
\nequivalent hardware, this represents an unprecedented experiment in
\ncompetitive software-engineering approaches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\nLanguage<\/th>\nFramework<\/th>\nNotes<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Apple<\/th>\nObjective-C<\/td>\nCocoa<\/td>\nOld-school object-oriented language compiled to the metal; general-purpose UI
\nframework with roots reaching back to NeXT.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Android<\/th>\nJava<\/td>\nAndroid<\/td>\nJava language, custom VM, built-from-scratch UI
\nframework aimed at small-form-factor devices, fairly abstraction-free, based
\non “Actions” and “Intents”.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
web OS<\/th>\nJavaScript<\/td>\n“Mojo”<\/td>\nAll Web technology all the time. Innovative and visually-impressive
\n“card”-based UI.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

(I think it’s interesting to see Windows Mobile on the list:<\/p>\n\n\n
Windows Mobile<\/th>\nC\/C++<\/td>\nWindows CE\/.NET Micro<\/td>\nPhilosophically tries to bring Windows to the phone. When I did WinCE development it felt like doing C++ for a Windows OS from the past.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n

)<\/em>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I see way too many other factors to attribute success\/failure of the devices to the language. So I wouldn’t call this an experiment.<\/p>\n

But it is interesting how much development for each platform diverges at a fundamental level!<\/p>\n

Historically most operating systems —
\nUNIX, OS\/2, Linux, Windows, Solaris, Mac (Classic and OS X) — were predominantly, written in C\/C++. While each platform has it’s own frameworks, they all have strong support for C++ development. (Although Mac OS X has is slowly dropping support for it’s C\/C++ “Carbon” API<\/a>, and Windows wants to be moving to C# .NET)<\/p>\n

It’s really cool to see mobile platforms doing something radically different from each other. There are good arguments for each approach — may the best one win.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tim Bray, …Palm’s approach is radically different from both Android’s and Apple’s. Since they’re all here at more or less the same time, running the same Web browser on roughly equivalent hardware, this represents an unprecedented experiment in competitive software-engineering approaches. Language Framework Notes Apple Objective-C Cocoa Old-school object-oriented language compiled to the metal; general-purpose […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,4,24,9],"tags":[350,616,248,351,169,114],"class_list":["post-257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cocoa","category-programming","category-quotes","category-unix","tag-android","tag-iphone","tag-mobility","tag-palm","tag-software-development","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgable.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgable.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgable.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgable.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgable.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vgable.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vgable.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgable.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vgable.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}