Re: Which ObjC2.0 features are missing in the latest GCC?

[Ivan Vučica]

On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 8:02 PM Yavor Doganov <yavor@gnu.org> wrote:
> The answer is simple: because there's a
> lot to lose and nothing to gain.

As someone that does want to see GCC have continued support in
GNUstep's core libs, and as someone who has been happy in an ARC-free
world, and as someone that's very appreciative of work being put into
keeping GNUstep available in Debian:

This is unfortunately wrong. There is a lot to gain. Developers who
want to start using Debian-built GNUstep libraries can start using
tons and tons of features that GCC and GCC runtime do not support.
Most have been outlined throughout this thread, but here's some that
come to mind:

- ARC is one.
- Blocks is another.
- @123 syntax for NSNumber (and similar stuff for arrays and dicts and
more) is another.
- Improved @property support is yet another.

I'm not dependent on any of these. But I'd say that Debian's packaging
of GNUstep is very important and even if the core doesn't start
depending on these features, they should be made available.

What's lost is builds on some architectures. Can't those architectures
keep using GCC-targeting libraries or be actively disabled? Even if
the core and GCC support these architectures, do Debian packages have
to ship for them?