Sierra, again.

OK, there are other things I meant to post, but I ran across the latest update on the Sierra language Kickstarter, and I really need to comment. First the update:

Update #1: Sierra to Objective C
Posted 5 days ago
I have decided that the project will first translate into Objective C
rather than having Sierra translating into C
so that software development for the iPhone and iPad can
be accelerated by 10X for each programmer and it will reduce bugs
by at least 50%.
So the funding for this project will focus on having Sierra translating
into Objective C.
Please everyone who currently codes in Objective C add your input
to the design of the Sierra language.
Blake

<rant>
Oh my fracking lord! I don’t even have words for this.

I think it’s basically programming 101 that any superset of C allows for the inclusion of C. Any C-preprocessor that generates C will perforce work with any superset of C. That’s the bit that anyone with a passing familiarity with C/C-front/C++/Obj-C/Turbo-C/Tiny-C/etc. would know.

But to compound the idiocy (and that’s what we have here), the idea that Obj-C programmers would be 10x faster because of SYNTAX improvement is absurd. The majority of ideas in Sierra don’t even really make sense in the context of Objective-C.

Additionally, Sierra doesn’t even begin to address any aspect of iOS programming. Objective-C might be the language, but all the heavy lifting (and therefore the bugs) stem from the iOS frameworks. Creating new/better frameworks might be a worthy goal, but is thisthe project, or the person to undertake that task? If someone came up with a DWIM-framwork, that might make us 10x faster, maybe. I’d be skeptical even then. Heck, most iOS/MacOS programmers would be more efficient if all the existing frameworks actually worked exactly as documented.

Finally, will someone tell this guy that declaring yourself associated with the iPhone/iPad does not automatically make your idea better? This needs to go away. Now.
</rant>

You can see my previous posts on Sierra: here and here.

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