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I'm curious about the significance of this. I don't know anything about OS X or iOS development (or mobile development generally). Does this provide a relativ

by rwl 15y ago

I'm curious about the significance of this. I don't know anything about OS X or iOS development (or mobile development generally). Does this provide a relatively simple way to port apps to non-Apple platforms? Or is more needed than just a compatible Objective-C runtime? If, say, Android shipped with this library, would that make it pretty trivial to produce native apps for both iPhone and Android from a single codebase?

bergie 15y ago
From the announcement: Julian Mayer for providing a demonstration of the capabilities of the runtime by using it for the Linux port of Core Breach, a game written for Apple systems, which makes extensive use of Objective-C 2 features, including blocks.
- rbanffy 15y ago
  How typical is Core Breach as a Mac application?
jmah 15y ago
It would be trivial if the libraries ("frameworks") were the same; their sources are not shared openly by Apple. GNUstep was however based on the same open specification as earlier NeXTStep / OpenStep libraries, which was the same foundation for Apple's current libraries. And porting is a popular use case, so compatibility can clearly be beneficial.
msbarnett 15y ago
This announcement is about the inclusion of Objective-C language runtime features that appear in 10.7 and iOS 5 in GNUStep. The runtime is responsible for providing basic language level features like message sending, reflection, IMP lookups, blocks, etc. It doesn't involve or include any of the actual API Frameworks that are used when developing OS X or iOS applications, however. So while this will simplify porting in the sense that you won't find that there are language features that are missing in GNUStep, porting still potentially involves significant changes to your code base, depending on what APIs you were relying on and what the equivalents available in GNUStep are like.
ibisum 15y ago
It is already quite possible to produce native apps for both iPhone and Android from a single codebase: use C++, and know how to use toll-free bridge and ndk-build properly. The platform-specific stuff is all quite available, if one looks, to the C++ coder who wants a couple local project header files to be the only difference she cares about between the platforms .. Or, from a different perspective and mostly only really applicable for very domain-specific problems, use Lua. For example, getmoai.com provides a fantastic Lua-based approach to the 'developers want a single codebase for all mobile platforms' methodology, going in another extreme completely. One set of code, runs on 6 different platforms, is a very viable 2D game kit ..

by rwl 15y ago

bergie 15y ago

From the announcement: Julian Mayer for providing a demonstration of the capabilities of the runtime by using it for the Linux port of Core Breach, a game written for Apple systems, which makes extensive use of Objective-C 2 features, including blocks.

rbanffy 15y ago
How typical is Core Breach as a Mac application?

jmah 15y ago

It would be trivial if the libraries ("frameworks") were the same; their sources are not shared openly by Apple. GNUstep was however based on the same open specification as earlier NeXTStep / OpenStep libraries, which was the same foundation for Apple's current libraries. And porting is a popular use case, so compatibility can clearly be beneficial.

msbarnett 15y ago

This announcement is about the inclusion of Objective-C language runtime features that appear in 10.7 and iOS 5 in GNUStep. The runtime is responsible for providing basic language level features like message sending, reflection, IMP lookups, blocks, etc. It doesn't involve or include any of the actual API Frameworks that are used when developing OS X or iOS applications, however. So while this will simplify porting in the sense that you won't find that there are language features that are missing in GNUStep, porting still potentially involves significant changes to your code base, depending on what APIs you were relying on and what the equivalents available in GNUStep are like.

ibisum 15y ago

It is already quite possible to produce native apps for both iPhone and Android from a single codebase: use C++, and know how to use toll-free bridge and ndk-build properly. The platform-specific stuff is all quite available, if one looks, to the C++ coder who wants a couple local project header files to be the only difference she cares about between the platforms .. Or, from a different perspective and mostly only really applicable for very domain-specific problems, use Lua. For example, getmoai.com provides a fantastic Lua-based approach to the 'developers want a single codebase for all mobile platforms' methodology, going in another extreme completely. One set of code, runs on 6 different platforms, is a very viable 2D game kit ..