Re: Minimalist GNUstep possible?

[Jonathan Wolf]

Hello Riccardo,

I apologize if any of my comments were taken in a bad manner - I fully
admit to some ignorance to the way GNUstep works, and have found the
conversations on the dev list very insightful and helpful. =)

> What point do you have in an .app "bundle" if you do not have the GUI app
> itself and if you want GNUstep to be a ".so"?

The idea is to try and "mimic" the native layout of each target
platform (Windows, Linux, and Mac) while maintaining the ObjC runtime.
App bundles will be appropriate for Mac, where as stand alone
executables (and any relevant data) would be appropriate for Win/Nix.
The idea is to try and keep the nature of the GNUstep layout (with the
various folder hierarchy) restricted as much as possible. I know I
will probably get some fire for this, but again, the idea is to use
ObjC for all three systems and use GNUstep for the Windows and Linux
side (while keeping with Apple's stuff on the Mac side).

> I think you underestimate the portability and compactness of "Foundation"
> which is what you are looking for.

Oh not at all - I wasn't looking for compactness in terms of program
size, but rather number of dependencies and number of file system
hierarchy modifications.

For instance, when on Mac, one has a user Library folder and program
specific Documents folder and the likes. While that is great for Mac,
this is not the way my team would like to mimic the hierarchy in a
Linux or Windows environment (keeping to a /usr/local/share in nix, or
my documents in win - just for instance). The data files relevant to
storing user preferences, etc., will still be maintained in an XML,
but that will be (on Win/Nix) local to the program directory. This is
more just an issue of trying to, again, mimic a native application to
said system, keeping the "mess" to an absolute minimal, and looking
like a native built application (with only Mac having the App bundle).


Sorry if that's not the best way of explaining it or if that's not how
GNUstep was set up to "work". :p


Nonetheless, thanks again for the excellent discussion.


On Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 12:43 PM, Riccardo Mottola <address@hidden> wrote:
> Hi,
>>
>> Thanks for the reply David,
>>
>> I apologize for my lack of correct terminology - I did mean just
>> Foundation (as in, NSObject, NSDate, etc.) and .app bundles.
>>
>>
>
> What point do you have in an .app "bundle" if you do not have the GUI app
> itself and if you want GNUstep to be a ".so"?
>>
>> The idea that this is sparked off from is basically how one would take
>> ObjC, in a minimalist form, and port it over to another environment -
>> equally the same issue if you were to take it from iPhone to desktop
>> (say Windows/MinGW) or, probably another avenue to be explored next
>> year, iPhone to Android (if estimates of the Android market overtaking
>> iPhone stay true).
>>
>
> I think you underestimate the portability and compactness of "Foundation"
> which is what you are looking for.
>
> Foundation is compact, complete and reliable. It runs on a host of
> architectures and little resources. I have it working on a 68040 33MHz
> Motorola... And it runs very well on a MIPS netbook.
>
> The only thing is that its latest incarnation needs fairly modern thread
> stuff, I could use the older release on a 25Mhz Sparcstation with 32MB of
> ram easily! THat means the iPhone or iPad have far more resources!
>>
>> Having done years of C++, I've developed quite a hatred for all things
>> C++ in nature, and having gone from a strong C++ background to an ObjC
>> background, I have been absolutely amazed that it hasn't gotten more
>> wide reception. Either rate, I think one of the issues was that ObjC
>> was so intertwined to Apple, and GNUstep aims to break that - and this
>> is a very good thing imho.
>>
>
> I can understand your hate for C++. It is a shame it is so widespread.
>>
>> So I am trying to leverage the Foundation runtime best I can, but in a
>> minimalist form as possible - so aiming at a one file .so/.dll is the
>> goal really. I think that my original question may be a bit off since
>> what I am really interested in trying to make happen is so that going
>> through a GORM/GNUmake makefile like system (producing an .app
>> bundle), while interesting, is not necessarily the avenue wanting to
>> be took - mainly just pushing out a libobjc.so/.dll and
>> libnsfoundation.so/.dll would be the most ideal route.
>>
>>
>
> Play with "base", which contains foundation, it is most probably more than
> enough. You can also playing with its installation domains, like FHS. At the
> end, a Framework is really a library with a bunch of headers.
>
> Riccardo
>