[swarm-hackers] Host platform dependence (was Naming conventions)

[Bill Northcott]

On 19/11/2009, at 12:32 PM, Scott Christley wrote:

> Your comments make sense until you dig deeper, what exactly do you mean by 
> "Swarm style"?  Of these two messages, which one is "Swarm style" and which 
> one is "Cocoa style"?
> 
> [anObject doSomething]
> 
> [anObject doSomethingElse]

The answer is neither.  If doSomething is a Cocoa(Swarm) method, it is 
Cocoa(Swarm) style.

If you have Cocoa methods in a model it will not run on Linux or Windows unless 
we intend to add GNUstep to those Swarm library distributions.  Worse still 
Cocoa methods which are not part of GNUstep will make the model MacOS X only.  
That would seem to me to go completely against a basic objective of Swarm: that 
models should be independent of the host.  All the host dependence should be in 
the Swarm library code.

> If you are suggesting that tcl/tk/blt Swarm should be source compatible with 
> openstep Swarm, that would be a difficult task.

If by 'source compatible' you mean 'model source compatible', then that is 
exactly what I am suggesting.  Where do you see the big difficulties in this? 
If you mean 'library source compatible', that would seem to me to be impossible 
by definition.

The MacOS X Swarm library code could contain a much more sophisticated GUI, 
using all sort of Cocoa controls, with the ability to control model execution 
etc. without affecting the model code.  

I keep going back to R as the model for this.  An R code can run on any R 
platform even though there are several completely different GUIs.

It seems to me that Nima is writing a MacOS X version of Heatbugs, which seems 
to me to be a 'bad idea.'  What we need is Cocoa code in the library which will 
support the standard Heatbugs model, and other Swarm gui models.  As I see it 
this needs a Start/Stop/Save widget, a probe widget and an EZGraph 
implementation etc.
> 
> I'm not familiar with the GC hooks in Swarm but it's possible they are 
> compatible.  I don't really know much about how Apple's GC works.

So this is an area that needs investigating.

Thanks for the clarification
Bill

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