“Originally Written in…” vs. Code Generation

My assertion that the iPhone license phrase “Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine” can only mean zero code generation has been questioned. Here’s why I stand by that assessment (and consider the clause beyond the pale).

Let me point out that the common-sense reading of that clause is straightforward. The word “originally” clearly implies that writing this:

UIView.BeginAnimations("");
UIView.SetAnimationTransition(UIViewAnimationTransition.FlipFromLeft, this.Superview, true);
UIView.SetAnimationCurve(UIViewAnimationCurve.EaseInOut);
UIView.SetAnimationDuration(1.0);

and transforming it into:

[UIView beginAnimations: nil context:context];
[UIView setAnimationTransition: UIViewAnimationTransitionFlipFromLeft forView: [self superView] cache: YES];
[UIView setAnimationCurve: UIViewAnimationCurveEaseInOut];
[UIView setAnimationDuration: 1.0]

is forbidden. To take it to the extreme, can you imagine betting your company on convincing a jury that writing the first (which is C# and MonoTouch) and generating the second means it was “originally written in Objective C”? If so, you have some hard lessons about the legal system to learn.

I should point out that even though this code is clearly very similar, there are some slight differences, such as C#’s enumerated values UIViewAnimationTransition.FlipFromLeft as opposed to Objective C’s constant value UIViewAnimationTransitionFlipFromLeft. The . makes a difference in the parse tree and in the programmer’s mind — a small one, but a helpful one.

Read more: Knowing .NET

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