Re: Windows and GnuStep

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On 3 Feb 2006, at 14:58, Gregory John Casamento wrote:

> Jiva,
>
> I enjoy nothing more than a good debate.  Since I am the person who  
> wrote the response to the book, I will respond to each one of your  
> points in turn:
>
> 1. "GNUstep also allows a developer to compile his/her application  
> with almost no changes under most UNIX operating systems."
>
> This is the absolute truth.   At last count, GNUstep works well on  
> Linux, FreeBSD, Darwin, OpenBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, and various other  
> versions of UNIX.   Mac users can certainly deploy thier  
> applications on these operating systems.
>
> "Applications which use Foundation (AKA GNUstep-Base) exclusively  
> are portable to nearly any posix compliant OS, as well as Windows  
> (using Cygwin or MingW). Stephen Kochan briefly covers how to use  
> GNUstep under Windows in his excellent book, "Programming in  
> Objective-C". A windows installer for GNUstep can be found at ftp:// 
> ftp.gnustep.org/pub/gnustep/binaries/windows."
>
> This simply means that base is working on all platforms.  I was  
> careful not to make any claims as to GNUstep's fitness on Windows  
> as, quite frankly, it's not quite there yet.   No dishonesty here.
>
> I guess whether you think this refutation is valid or not depends  
> on your interpretation of the term "cross platform" I believe that  
> the simple fact that GNUstep works on such a wide variety of UNIX  
> platforms provides ample cross platform opportunities for Mac  
> developers seeking other avenues in which to deploy their apps.   I  
> think that it's sad that a potential user *CAN* misread this entry  
> since it clearly states that only foundation is working completely  
> on Windows.

I agree ... it's sad and it's not how I would have read it, but it  
seems it needs clarification.

Perhaps it's worth saying that while it's perfectly possible to write  
applications which are portable to windows, at least 90% of  
applications have been written solely for portability across unix  
platforms.  Also that gui apps on windows do *NOT* have native look  
and feel and will not do so until someone spends considerable time on  
developing a windows theme and other windows interoperability features.
Also, even though base on windows is easily good enough for  
commercial applications, it's still not quite up to the standard it  
is on unix.