Ask HN: How Many Programming Languages Can iOS Apps Be Written In?

3 points by tronium 12 years ago | 5 comments

I know about Swift, O-C, C, C , and maybe even C# utilizing Unity for iOS, however, is it possible to write native iOS apps in even more languages? For instance, would there be a way to run Python or Ruby-based apps?

dottrap 12 years ago |

Yes. Lua, JavaScript, Ruby (http://www.rubymotion.com), Java, C#, and pretty much any language that can talk to C (that's almost all of them) and embed and disable JIT (harder for some).

It doesn't mean it's easy to write an app though because you need to make a bridge to C and Obj-C. The languages above, people have already done so through varying techniques.

zimpenfish 12 years ago |

I believe Kivy ( http://kivy.org/docs/gettingstarted/intro.html ) is Python and can deploy to iOS (although it looks like a horrible faff - http://kivy.org/docs/guide/packaging-ios.html )

adamredwoods 12 years ago |

although a small user base, Monkey-x is quite fun (and compiles to native iOS!):

http://www.monkey-x.com

Xangis 12 years ago |

Xamarin gives partial Visual Basic support along with full support for C#.

deanfranks 12 years ago |

C++ or Delphi (pascal) via Embarcadero