Revisited the first iOS game I built (~15 years ago), back when I was learning Objective-C. Non-ARC, old cocos2d, iPhone4 layouts.

Spent a few hours doing manual cleanup, removing things like Flurry + old Game Center code, and fixing enough to make it compile.

It builds. It runs — including proper aspect-fit scaling on modern devices.

Apparently I had even built an After Effects to XML level design system pipeline. Not entirely sure how. 😅

#ios #objc

RE: https://mastodon.social/@stroughtonsmith/116018205506714527

If you’re a developer, this thread is absolutely mind-blowing. #objc #swift #android

The old dude was famously verbose, but this is getting a bit much:

[self.imageView addSymbolEffect:[NSSymbolRotateEffect effect] options:[NSSymbolEffectOptions optionsWithRepeatBehavior:[NSSymbolEffectOptionsRepeatBehavior behaviorPeriodicWithCount:1]]];

#ObjC

Comparing iOS dev with Machine Learning

#ios #swift #objc #ml #machinelearning

Oh hi, haven't seen this one in a while...

objc_setAssociatedObject(x, &y, z, OBJC_ASSOCIATION_RETAIN);

#objc #swift

back in my early industry days when i was porting the adventure game studio (AGS) engine and games to mac/ios, i developed a healthy hatred of Objective-C which was used as interface glue between the engine code and macOS/ios

i had been working with C/C++ for a long time, and had made the mistake of assuming all programming syntax was essentially C-like in structure

suddenly having to deal with obj-c syntax was like stepping into an alien spaceship:

@interface ClassName : SuperclassName {
// instance variables
}
+ classMethod1;
(param1_type)param1_varName;

- (return_type)instanceMethod1With1Parameter:(param1_type)param1_varName;
@end

i could sort of grok out what i needed to do by changing a few variables and ctrl-c ctrl-v the methods i needed, but the overall experience was so difficult that i was glad when i never had to touch it again

over a decade later, i am *so* impressed by what obj-C was attempting. after doing a lot of NeXTStep reading, i finally understand what it was trying to do: add smalltalk-80 message-passing and object orientedness to C. the changes to the syntax (like using the + and - to indicate class vs. instance methods) are actually pretty cool!

sad that i dismissed something so fascinating in the early days just because i was more worried about getting a project done on time than actually learning how it worked

#programming #smallTalk #objC