You need to learn Clojure. I would bet since you've been a developer for 23 years you've probably tried Clojure already - especially since it's popular among the Java/JVM crowd. Here's why, in the context of your post, I think you would like it:
1) Is dynamic like JavaScript, the learning curve for a seasoned developer such as you would be low and you'd get velocity quickly
2) Allows you to focus on the problem solving at hand rather than spending a bunch of time just build base classes to model your solution
3) Refactoring is easier as Clojure puts you on the road to pure functional programming, and your solution is not complected (or at least has low complection)
4) Has a nice interactive environment for prototyping/developing, much like some of the JavaScript tools out there
5) Can emit JavaScript for the browser using ClojureScript
Thanks for the advice! I have toyed with Clojure, but the idea of functional programming without a procedural escape hatch for any real world project puts me off a bit after doing ML at university.
What would be the best book to read to get me excited about Clojure, in your opinion?
I also love Clojure, but I would recommend learning Scala. Its essentially a vastly improved Java. Or you could say its vastly improved on many previous languages. But at its core it is Java (JVM).
Its easy to read, succinct, functional or OOP when you want it to be, and you can work directly with any java library. Its really a well designed language.
The only downside is that the compile time is very slow, whereas with Clojure you can develop on the fly.
The downside to Clojure is that the code is very dense to read. But if you have the time I also strongly recommend playing with it for a week.
The "Joy of Clojure" is the best book on understanding the mid and high level constructs and design of Clojure (and FP). It's not a beginner book though - for that the books from the Pragmatic Programmers or Oreilly are excellent.
Why? You'll use up your 4G data plan in 97 seconds. At least with 3G it would take a day or so to blow past your monthly data limit.
In all seriousness - yes, this is an issue, but with the divergence of 4G spectrums and the radios required to support all of them, it does make sense they don't support it yet. I'm probably gonna get the Nexus 4 anyways, as with my iPhone 4 I have 3G data and it's perfectly adequate. I'm also a heavy (not super heavy) user of data.
OMFG. Total, complete lack of understanding of Apple. I'm no fanboi of either iOS or Android (I actually have several of both).
"News accounts this week suggested that Google was caught off-guard by Apple’s decision to kick it off the iPhone"
WTF?! Last time I checked, Apple doesn't tell you jack shit about what they plan to do, even if (or especially if?) you're Google.
"The best thing about Tim Cook’s note is the part where he lists alternative maps apps for the iPhone. Sure, he had no choice, but this may be an unprecedented thing for Apple: Can you recall the company ever telling people that something it made isn’t as good as something made by others?"
Again, WTF?! Why doesn't Mapquest or Bing have an iOS app... hmmm... let me think... BECAUSE APPLE DOES NOT ALLOW IT. They clearly have said they won't let an App into the store that duplicates "built in" functionality.
I am beside myself that such utter bullshit would be written by none other than Farhad Manjoo.
You must be joking. I've built several projects, for pay, using Titanium and find it to be very powerful and fast for building even complex mobile apps. The customers have been thrilled that I'm able to deliver tons of features in shorter time frames and hence lower cost.
As for error output - you just need to look at the logs in detail (and turn them up to trace) to get details for hard crashed.
"To be crystal clear here, our intentions are that we will not charge for development that happens under the “App Explore” product (i.e., the free version). Usage of the Appcelerator platform (Titanium Mobile SDK, Titanium Studio, Analytics and Cloud Services) at this level is permitted for all applications, both commercial and free, with no financial obligation to Appcelerator."
Again, APL code on Github. APL is a permissive and "biz friendly" license as we all know.
Appcelerator is open source for the sake of being considered open source. They certainly are not in business to promote businesses using their open source for free.
They don't. I've used Appcelerator for a number of projects that are now on the App store(s) and haven't ever worried about this. The source code is on Github under the Apache license as you mentioned. This is enough for me and my lawyers to not worry about it.
