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by ChrisMarshallNY 2181 days ago
I've been spending the last couple of years doubling down on learning Swift, and the Swift ecosystem. It's been 14 hours a day, seven days a week.

And I haven't been paid a dime.

All the while, I have been told that I'm "wasting my time," "you should be learning React Native and Javascript," and that "Apple is a dead company." etc. ad nauseam

Since I've been hearing that same refrain (substitute "Windows" for "React Native," and "C" for "JavaScript") for the last 34 years, it doesn't phase me that much.

The simple fact of the matter is, I can afford to take the time to do it, I really like Swift, and I really like developing for Apple systems.

Maybe it will result in some kind of lucrative stuff; maybe not. I don't care.

I spent over 30 years, writing software that other people used as toilet paper. I'm doing what I want.

This guy is doing what he wants. Good on him.

One of the nice things about art, is that it is something other people enjoy; maybe, even more than we (the artists) do.

I think it's great.

I also enjoyed this[0], a couple of years ago.

[0] https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1757088830996244

1 comments

Since we are sharing: I've spent the last couple of years, on and off, building a physics engine from scratch. Pretty hard considering I'm not a mechanical engineer. Lots of fun though.
Excellent! You should do a "Show HN," when you are done.

What language are you using? What is your destination platform?

UPDATE: I just looked at your HN handle. Questions answered. Good show!

>>What language are you using?

Java

>>What is your destination platform?

Mac, Windows, iPhone, Android

I have not run Java on iPhone (that I know of). Do you know if it will pass the App Store review?
I'm first transcoding the Java code into Objective-C code with a Java to Objective-C transcoder that I wrote for fun. Google has their own Java To Objective-C transcoder, though I've never used it.
Cool. I wrote a Pascal-to-C++ transcriber in the late 1980s. It was mostly done with RegEx, on a command line.

What a nightmare.

You have cool hobbies.

I think Apple removed their restrictions on programming languages long ago. If you can get it to run on the platform, you can use it, AFAIK.
No. Apple doesn't natively support Java on iOS, but there is an app called Pico[0], that supposedly acts like a Java IDE.

It doesn't seem to be a particularly popular program, but it's the only one I've seen that does it.

I don't know if this[1] ever bore fruit.

The transcoder Java->ObjC isn't a bad idea. The languages have a lot of similarities.

[0] https://apps.apple.com/in/app/pico-compiler-java-compiler-jd...

[1] https://www.infoworld.com/article/3407781/a-plan-to-bring-ja...