Re: GNUstep base vs libobjc

[Sašo Kiselkov]

Quoting percy tiglao <prtiglao@gmail.com>:

> Hello, I am very new to Objective-C and I'd like to try it out for a
> while (looks like the language I'm looking for, dynamic, small,
> compiled, portable, and C-like)

Good choice. :-)

> I do not feel like stepping all the way into the NeXT framework, but
> I'd like to use Objc as a development language (I'm going to be
> building games, and portability to both Windows and Linux is a top
> issue) If you are curious, I'm planning on SDL/OpenGL in Obj-C

You can, of course, use the plain libobjc with your classes
derived directly from Object, but then you're throwing away all the comfort of
OpenStep. OpenStep's Objective-C part is basically split into two library:

- FoundationKit (gnustep-base), which is a library of abstract base classes
containing things like unicode strings, object containers and neat features
such as semi-automatic garbage collection (makes memory management a _LOT_
easier without the overhead of a full garbage collector).

- ApplicationKit (gnustep-gui&back) is a library of graphical elements such as
buttons, windows, sliders, menus etc. for building graphical applications.

The reason why this is kept separate is to allow developers to develop both gui
and non-gui applications with the full comfort of Foundation and it's prepared
solutions to many common problems. Personally, I'd recomment in your case to
make use of Foundation (gnustep-base), but not AppKit.

> I was wondering if libobjc was made obsolete by GNUstep base, and
> weather or not I should use NSObject or just plain old Object if I
> want to stay away from NeXT gui stuff and so forth. My main concern is
> that I'd like to have it running on Windows easily without the user
> installing a bunch of extra stuff. Static linkage would be great,
> though i guess DLLs would be fine as well (i'd much prefer a static
> .exe in Windows, solves a lot of problems :) )
> In essence, I'd like to avoid dependancies as much as possible.

GNUstep-base basically removes the need to interact with libobjc, and as much as
I know the port to Windows is stable. Static linking shouldn't be much of a
problem - after all gnustep-base is just yet another library.

>
> Thank you for hearing me out.
>
> Percy.

You're welcome. :-) Next time you will help somebody else.

--
Saso