The new Mac Gemini app has a huge executable binary (128MB!).

[ccgus@mastodon.social]

The new Mac Gemini app has a huge executable binary (128MB!). Took a peak at it and … it contains 1,856 Objective-C classes whose class name starts with Java.

What in the world are they doing?

So I had Gemini analyze Gemini. Looks like there’s a lot of shared Android code in there, but compiled to Objective-C and Swift.

[drarok@mastodon.social]

@ccgus any chance they’re using Kotlin in there? Java class names could be part of a runtime, I’ve never used it though. https://kotlinlang.org/docs/multiplatform/multiplatform-integrate-in-existing-app.html

[ccgus@mastodon.social]

@Drarok Maybe! Something tells me that Google would write their own transpiler though, because they are mad scientists at heart.

[alexr@mastodon.online]

@ccgus @Drarok <spoiler> They aren’t the first ones to use a Java to ObjC cross-compiler in production.

[i_am_fabs@mastodon.social]

@ccgus this did not age well. ‍

[sdpd@hachyderm.io]

@ccgus https://developers.google.com/j2objc

[davidanson@mastodon.social]

@ccgus “Write once, run anywhere!”

[jacksonhayes@mastodon.social]

@ccgus “technically” native, then?

[0x1ac@techhub.social]

@ccgus @siracusa Funny how all these AI apps sound vibe-coded.

[ccgus@mastodon.social]

@sdpd Very cool, thanks for the pointer.

[ccgus@mastodon.social]

Well thanks to @sdpd, I think this answers the Java to Objective-C question: https://developers.google.com/j2objc

[otolithe@mastodon.social]

@ccgus @siracusa to be fair, Google is a small company and doesn’t really have the resources to do a proper Mac app. We should start a fundraiser…

[heathborders@hachyderm.io]

@ccgus it's probably using j2objc or something.

[gullevek@famichiki.jp]

@ccgus @siracusa So it’s AU slop!

[helge@mastodon.social]

@heathborders @ccgus I still wonder how sth like this can actually work, mostly considering GC

[lukeratta@mastodon.social]

@ccgus Sounds like they’re using Kotlin, maybe.

[heathborders@hachyderm.io]

@helge looks like j2objc has heuristics to implement MRR

J2ObjC मेमोरी मॉडल  |  Google for Developers

Google for Developers (developers.google.com)

[woolie@mastodon.social]

@DavidAnson @ccgus I think the term is “write once, suck everywhere”

[dfgomes@mastodon.social]

@ccgus Why am I not surprised? Everything Google does is trash.

[js@ap.nil.im]

@ccgus @bugaevc cough https://developers.google.com/j2objc cough