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The Apple Objective-C runtime is right there on Apple Opensource https://opensource.apple.com/source/objc4/objc4-750.1/ https://opensource.apple.com/source/objc

• skohan 8y ago
  If it is now, that has not always been the case. Also I invite you to build and link the runtime on a non-apple platform and compare that experience to building a working binary with the Swift Package Manager.
  • pjmlp 8y ago
    You mean Swift packages that depend on macOS and iOS APIs?
    • skohan 8y ago
      No I mean it is relatively painless to build a Swift executable using the package manager on Ubuntu. Doing the same with an Objective-C executable which relies on the runtime is probably several days of work.
      • pjmlp 8y ago
        It was pretty painless with GNUStep/GCC Objective-C runtime, not that it helped fostering adoption outside NeXT and Apple platforms, since the late 90's. Naturally GNUStep kind of runned out of steam by Pather, but still.
        • skohan 8y ago
          GNUstep was far from painless. I had the pleasure of trying to use it to port some Objective C code maybe 8 years ago and it was an absolute pain to deal with, not to mention that there were some implementation details which varied from the Apple implementation so your code would not behave consistently between platforms. Not to mention that it’s very different to have cross platform support as part of the core development process. With a 3rd party implementation like GNUStep,(especially one with a relatively small user base) there is no guarantee that it would keep pace with Apple’s implementation. Swift is a much smoother, modern experience. I am not saying it is perfect, and other languages have much better support across platforms, but to compare Swift and Objective-C is just not accurate.
    • deleted 8y ago
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