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Google "inbox" Architecture and Cross Platform Development

posted by martyb on Sunday November 23 2014, @01:09PM   Printer-friendly
from the our-inbox-is-your-inbox dept.

Inbox is a new email app based on Gmail, which appears to be mostly aimed at mobile users — with separate versions "optimized" for web, Android, and iOS. This blog post gives an overview of their development tools for the three platforms:

For iOS we developed the now open source J2ObjC cross compiler to translate our Java data model to Objective-C, and again we get a natural API on which to build our native iOS Inbox app (complete with [Reminder snooze]). The astute reader may wonder how we deal with the impedance mismatch when translating from a garbage collected language (Java) to a reference counted one (Objective-C). Generally, J2ObjC relies on Objective-C autorelease pools, so objects normally garbage-collected are instead freed when a pool drains. ...

As an old guy, I don't really like their usage of "impedance mismatch", but maybe the analogy is okay? See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impedance_mismatch

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Nerdfest on Sunday November 23 2014, @04:04PM

    by Nerdfest (80) on Sunday November 23 2014, @04:04PM (#119136)

    Yeah, I've heard they hire mostly bullshitters.
    Impedance mismatch has been borrowed (ages ago) to describe the difficulty interfacing disparate approaches like OO, vs. relational databases vs. hierarchical, etc. Design patterns are simply names given to common coding solutions that have been used for years and they people communicate their ideas quickly and clearly.
    I'll assume you're either trolling or woke up in a bad mood.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @06:57PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 23 2014, @06:57PM (#119165)

    As an EE I'm confused/frustrated by this usage. You (appear to) claim that it is common, but I have never heard it before. The metaphor is nowhere near apt.
    Mismatch is fine. Impedance mismatch is very specific and totally out of context.

    • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday November 23 2014, @08:06PM

      by Nerdfest (80) on Sunday November 23 2014, @08:06PM (#119188)

      It's common enough to have a well-defined Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org]. I have background in analogue electronics (although not an EE) and I find it quite a nice analogy. It's been around since at least the mid-nineties and I haven't heard anything better.