5 ms·

“Adds iOS build support to gomobile command”

128 points by ConceitedCode 11y ago

pbreit 11y ago
What exactly does this enable?
- zaroth 11y ago
  Here's some good examples: https://medium.com/using-go-in-mobile-apps https://medium.com/using-go-in-mobile-apps Judging from the popping a dialog example, I think the main use case is reusing a Go library inside an iOS app, not any kind of standalone app development entirely with Go. At least, not without a lot of helper libraries which don't exist yet!
crazychrome 11y ago
I don't think the fruit company will approve apps programmed other than objc or swift.
- ssutch3 11y ago
  They have been for a long time now. Apps are commonly written in Java, Javascript, scripting in lua, python, etc. The only thing they don't allow is executable pages of memory, which the Go previously required due to it's runtime.
- jkrems 11y ago
  Aren't they already approving apps written in C#? What's different about Go?
- matthewmacleod 11y ago
  They've been doing that for ages already. Please do at least a cursory bit of research before commenting about an area you're clearly not familiar with! It will save a lot of time, and prevent FUD like this from continuing to spread.
  - hughw 11y ago
    Well, I'm glad he asked, because I didn't know all these languages mentioned in the responses, were supported on iOS and the App Store.
- coldtea 11y ago
  Apple has been accepting apps in all kinds of languages for years, including: Lua, C#, Racket, JS+native wrappers, Java, C, C++, Ruby, Python, etc. Their current guidelines only prohibit dynamic code download (that is: installable plugins from outside the App Store): 3.3.2 An Application may not download or install executable code. Interpreted code may only be used in an Application if all scripts, code and interpreters are packaged in the Application and not downloaded. The only exception to the foregoing is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple’s built-in WebKit framework.
wiremine 11y ago
So, let me get this straight: * You can write part of your app in Go * You can share that code across your Android and iOS apps? Is that right? If so, seems like a solid use case for Go. Until Swift compiles to Android...
- anonova 11y ago
  I currently do this with Rust, as it can target both iOS [1] and Android [2], but you do have to build your own cross-compiler. [1]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Doc-building-for-ios.md https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Do... [2]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Doc-building-for-android.md https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Do...
  - rkapsoro 11y ago
    Hey, if you can share, in what kind of project are you using shared Rust code on both iOS and Android? That's pretty awesome!
  - McElroy 11y ago
    I had no idea. Thanks!
- aikah 11y ago
  it's a good replacement for C if you were using it in Android or Ios. But you can't write classic Android or Ios apps with Go.You can however use Opengl so potentially write games, but using Cocoa and co? zip. Go on android doesn't even support android's own NDK ...
  - steinnes 11y ago
    Yeah, being able to compile and link a binary is pretty far from having a nice SDK :-)
- akhilcacharya 11y ago
  Is it really that beneficial to do this? Your system API's are still in Java/Obj-C/Swift, so all you can really share is business logic. Has anybody had any real benefit from doing this in the past? I know Facebook did it with moments, but the image processing code could at least be shared here.
eva1984 11y ago
Which part of the application can be shared between iOS and Android apps that is most suitable to write in Go? Data layer, like communication protocol?
- hobarrera 11y ago
  go has issues on IPv6 clients, so not communication. Probably the business logic, which is what least needs to interact with the OS APIs.
aaronbrethorst 11y ago
Dear mods: please stop 'de-editorializing' headlines when the alternative won't make any sense. The new title for this link is nigh-unintelligible. (the previous title was something like "Go 1.5 will add support for building iOS apps")
- theGimp 11y ago
  Agreed. I'm all for cracking down on title bait, but this is just going too far. This submission had a clear, descriptive title, and now it completely lacks context.
- baijum 11y ago
  I submitted this news few hours back with that title based on the tweet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9812968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9812968 Edit: not exact same title, but similar.
- dang 11y ago
  Take the sample bias out of your request and generalize it to all of HN, and what you're asking will no longer sound so trivial. Submitters make up titles all the time that are (to use the sibling comment's words) "clear, descriptive", and wrong. Set aside the fact that HN's rules explicitly ask people not to do that. What would you have us do? If you say "never change them", that would flood HN with false and manipulative titles forever. (Not that this one was false and manipulative—I wouldn't know. But I do know that that would be the consequence of never changing titles.) If you say "change the ones that are false and keep the ones that are true", you're asking us to be experts on everything. The submitted title was "Go 1.5 will have iOS support". The submitted web page says nothing of the sort. What should we do? Being an expert on the Go project's internal progress—that is, being an expert on everything in the general case—is not an option. So we look for language in the article itself that is representative of what it says. That has two merits: (1) it preserves the neutral quality of HN's front page and (2) it's doable. If you'd like to propose a change that doesn't demand superhuman powers of us and wouldn't destroy the character of HN, please do. But getting upset over a single suboptimal example doesn't seem serious to me. HN sees a thousand stories a day. Not every example is going to come out optimal no matter what we do.
avinassh 11y ago
OT: Does Gerrit provide any extra features helping in code review, compared to Github? We use Github and it does fine.
- uxp 11y ago
  Gerrit and GitHub provide two different paradigms. If you want a straightforward answer, then yes Gerrit provides a number of extra features, but it isn't a replacement for GitHub.
- piotrkaminski 11y ago
  Yeah, it does -- I'll let somebody who knows it better fill you in, but it really is night and day if you're serious about reviewing code. If you'd like to try a more powerful code review system than GitHub's to see what you're missing, without spending lots of time setting up and learning Gerrit, I'd recommend giving https://reviewable.io https://reviewable.io a whirl. (Disclosure: I built it.)
Gys 11y ago
So this make something similar as Cordova possible ? Running a local webserver with all logic, serving html5/css/js as GUI ? Would still need bindings for accelerator and such (just as Cordova) but maybe its possible to use the ones Cordova already has ?

128 points by ConceitedCode 11y ago

pbreit 11y ago

What exactly does this enable?

zaroth 11y ago
Here's some good examples: https://medium.com/using-go-in-mobile-apps https://medium.com/using-go-in-mobile-apps Judging from the popping a dialog example, I think the main use case is reusing a Go library inside an iOS app, not any kind of standalone app development entirely with Go. At least, not without a lot of helper libraries which don't exist yet!

crazychrome 11y ago

I don't think the fruit company will approve apps programmed other than objc or swift.

ssutch3 11y ago
They have been for a long time now. Apps are commonly written in Java, Javascript, scripting in lua, python, etc. The only thing they don't allow is executable pages of memory, which the Go previously required due to it's runtime.
jkrems 11y ago
Aren't they already approving apps written in C#? What's different about Go?
matthewmacleod 11y ago
They've been doing that for ages already. Please do at least a cursory bit of research before commenting about an area you're clearly not familiar with! It will save a lot of time, and prevent FUD like this from continuing to spread.
- hughw 11y ago
  Well, I'm glad he asked, because I didn't know all these languages mentioned in the responses, were supported on iOS and the App Store.
coldtea 11y ago
Apple has been accepting apps in all kinds of languages for years, including: Lua, C#, Racket, JS+native wrappers, Java, C, C++, Ruby, Python, etc. Their current guidelines only prohibit dynamic code download (that is: installable plugins from outside the App Store): 3.3.2 An Application may not download or install executable code. Interpreted code may only be used in an Application if all scripts, code and interpreters are packaged in the Application and not downloaded. The only exception to the foregoing is scripts and code downloaded and run by Apple’s built-in WebKit framework.

wiremine 11y ago

So, let me get this straight: * You can write part of your app in Go * You can share that code across your Android and iOS apps? Is that right? If so, seems like a solid use case for Go. Until Swift compiles to Android...

anonova 11y ago
I currently do this with Rust, as it can target both iOS [1] and Android [2], but you do have to build your own cross-compiler. [1]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Doc-building-for-ios.md https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Do... [2]: https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Doc-building-for-android.md https://github.com/rust-lang/rust-wiki-backup/blob/master/Do...
- rkapsoro 11y ago
  Hey, if you can share, in what kind of project are you using shared Rust code on both iOS and Android? That's pretty awesome!
- McElroy 11y ago
  I had no idea. Thanks!
aikah 11y ago
it's a good replacement for C if you were using it in Android or Ios. But you can't write classic Android or Ios apps with Go.You can however use Opengl so potentially write games, but using Cocoa and co? zip. Go on android doesn't even support android's own NDK ...
- steinnes 11y ago
  Yeah, being able to compile and link a binary is pretty far from having a nice SDK :-)
akhilcacharya 11y ago
Is it really that beneficial to do this? Your system API's are still in Java/Obj-C/Swift, so all you can really share is business logic. Has anybody had any real benefit from doing this in the past? I know Facebook did it with moments, but the image processing code could at least be shared here.

eva1984 11y ago

Which part of the application can be shared between iOS and Android apps that is most suitable to write in Go? Data layer, like communication protocol?

hobarrera 11y ago
go has issues on IPv6 clients, so not communication. Probably the business logic, which is what least needs to interact with the OS APIs.

aaronbrethorst 11y ago

Dear mods: please stop 'de-editorializing' headlines when the alternative won't make any sense. The new title for this link is nigh-unintelligible. (the previous title was something like "Go 1.5 will add support for building iOS apps")

theGimp 11y ago
Agreed. I'm all for cracking down on title bait, but this is just going too far. This submission had a clear, descriptive title, and now it completely lacks context.
baijum 11y ago
I submitted this news few hours back with that title based on the tweet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9812968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9812968 Edit: not exact same title, but similar.
dang 11y ago
Take the sample bias out of your request and generalize it to all of HN, and what you're asking will no longer sound so trivial. Submitters make up titles all the time that are (to use the sibling comment's words) "clear, descriptive", and wrong. Set aside the fact that HN's rules explicitly ask people not to do that. What would you have us do? If you say "never change them", that would flood HN with false and manipulative titles forever. (Not that this one was false and manipulative—I wouldn't know. But I do know that that would be the consequence of never changing titles.) If you say "change the ones that are false and keep the ones that are true", you're asking us to be experts on everything. The submitted title was "Go 1.5 will have iOS support". The submitted web page says nothing of the sort. What should we do? Being an expert on the Go project's internal progress—that is, being an expert on everything in the general case—is not an option. So we look for language in the article itself that is representative of what it says. That has two merits: (1) it preserves the neutral quality of HN's front page and (2) it's doable. If you'd like to propose a change that doesn't demand superhuman powers of us and wouldn't destroy the character of HN, please do. But getting upset over a single suboptimal example doesn't seem serious to me. HN sees a thousand stories a day. Not every example is going to come out optimal no matter what we do.

avinassh 11y ago

OT: Does Gerrit provide any extra features helping in code review, compared to Github? We use Github and it does fine.

uxp 11y ago
Gerrit and GitHub provide two different paradigms. If you want a straightforward answer, then yes Gerrit provides a number of extra features, but it isn't a replacement for GitHub.
piotrkaminski 11y ago
Yeah, it does -- I'll let somebody who knows it better fill you in, but it really is night and day if you're serious about reviewing code. If you'd like to try a more powerful code review system than GitHub's to see what you're missing, without spending lots of time setting up and learning Gerrit, I'd recommend giving https://reviewable.io https://reviewable.io a whirl. (Disclosure: I built it.)

Gys 11y ago

So this make something similar as Cordova possible ? Running a local webserver with all logic, serving html5/css/js as GUI ? Would still need bindings for accelerator and such (just as Cordova) but maybe its possible to use the ones Cordova already has ?