[Openmcl-devel] Apple OKs other dev tools for iOS

[peter]

Many thanks for the elucidation Gary.

At 5:11 AM -0600 10/9/10, Gary Byers wrote:
>On Fri, 10 Sep 2010, peter wrote:
>
>>At 4:05 PM -0600 10/9/9, Gary Byers wrote:
>>[...]
>>
>>>  (At the very least, any native development environment
>>>would violate those guidelines - generating and loading code
>>
>>[...]
>>
>>Could we not just see the iOS on Touch devices as just deliver 
>>platforms for apps that we write elsewhere?
>
>
>Cross-compiling native lisp code is generally very different from
>cross-compiling [Obj]C.  Lisp object (FASL) files tend to have
>side-effects when loaded (that's the whole point ...).
[...]

So it seems we may use a 3 layered system. The full development 
environment as now in CCL on computer, some sort of CCL development 
environment on iOS which would include compiler and editor, and the 
final minimal end deliverable application.  The application itself 
carrying some non essential but useful debugging info. The style of 
development perhaps along the lines of MCLIDE's.

>>The "Clozure CL64" API app weighs in at 47MB, Alex's XMLisp at 
>>135MB. While the dx86cl64 executable is 1/2MB.  So couldn't my 
>>small iOS app weigh in at 1MB?
>
>I don't think that I understand the question.  Disk footprint probably
>matters some (as do some of the things that contribute to it), but I think
>that it's possible to care both too much and too little about this.
[...]

I think you've answered it. I don't know the sensible limitations of 
Touch app size, but it sounds as if there should be no problem for 
CCL developed apps to fit within bounds.

>>How delusional is any of this?
>
>I only understood bits and pieces of it, to be honest.

Here I disagree, I think you see through my reasoning with deep 
penetrating Xray and radio wavelength vision.

I'm trying to get a sense of what will be involved in harnessing lisp 
to deliver real-world apps on Touch platforms (well pocket devices in 
general). I have in mind my end users (by the million) grabbing their 
iPhones to do some devilishly classy digital lifestyle activity that 
is made possible thanks to the power of lisp and Clozure tools (not 
that they will know this).

It seems there need be no significant constraints on a CL iOS app, 
though it may be a little larger than an ObjC equivalent. At least 
constraints will be Apple's and not technical.

The REPL development cycle seems a significant advantage to the lisp 
developer, and it seems that could be possible via a SLIME/SWANK 
link. And if we are able to harness the full power of our usual 
development tools (inspect, trace, backtrace, condition handlers, 
incremental compilation, etc.), the CCL for iOS toolset will be 
phenomenal.

My end focus is real world consumers of delivered applications, and 
not software developers. The former will generate revenue (that can 
be used to buy Clozure support!).

Will we need to jailbreak iOS to get CCL on the device (seems 3GS 4.1 
version's just out)?