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Proposal: Swift Open Source Project and Foundation replacements
From: |
Maxthon Chan |
Subject: |
Proposal: Swift Open Source Project and Foundation replacements |
Date: |
Fri, 04 Dec 2015 04:01:16 +0800 |
Dear Swift developers:
Maybe you have never heard of it, but there have been several ongoing efforts,
like GNUstep and Cocotron, at maintaining an open source Foundation
reimplementation for alternative operating systems like Linux. It seemed to me
that the current release of Swift did not put such efforts into consideration
and brutally broke compatibility between Swift and Objective-C on Linux. I
understand the fact that Apple is unwilling to release source code of
Foundation, and this is usually where those alternative implementations comes
into play.
Some of such projects, like GNUstep, are mature enough to allow existing AppKit
applications written in Objective-C, like TextEdit and Chess, to be ported from
OS X to Linux and Windows without changing too much, if any, code, taking all
modern Objective-C features like ARC and object subscripting with stride, with
a compatible version of LLVM compiler. Meanwhile, with the current version of
Swift, even if the Swift code is written with calls to Objective-C runtime
assuming the case on OS X, it is broken under Linux even with libobjc linked in.
I am here suggesting keeping the Objective-C bridge intact at least when built
with a compatible version of libobjc (and GNUstep project have one already.)
This will allow users of such alternative Foundation reimplementations to use
their favourite Foundation distribution in place of the version provided by the
Swift project, retaining the code compatibility already established between OS
X and Linux by those Swift reimplementations.
In such an environment the alternative Foundation implementation will provide
their own version of CoreFoundation and Foundation, implemented using C and
Objective-C, as well as a libobjc that supports ARC. The Swift environment
would be built without its own CoreFoundation and Foundation, but linking
against the provided version instead, bridging calls just like OS X version of
Swift does. This will also allow the new Swift platform to take full advantage
of the AppKit came with the alternative Foundation, allow porting full OS X
apps to Linux a lot easier. The above also applies for porting iOS apps, if the
alternative Foundation implementation also comes with their own UIKit.
Max
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- Proposal: Swift Open Source Project and Foundation replacements,
Maxthon Chan <=