Re: really attracting developers

[Riccardo]

Hey,

On Tuesday, August 29, 2006, at 09:29 AM, Chris Vetter wrote:

> [...]
> > If we just implement the OpenStep specification (and ignore cocoa, 
> > which added nice thing and ruined others) we have enough power to 
> > write our web browser (yes, seriously, it is time and resources which 
> > lack, not frameworks), an office suite, an imaging application, a 3d 
> > application.... it was done on OpenStep and we even have stuff which 
> > was not in OS.
> [...]
>
> I beg to differ. Which framework(s) are you referring to regarding a 
> web browser?
> Yes, there basically are 3 to pick from (libwww, Mozilla's engine and 
> WebKit) but the first two would need wrapping and the latter  is a PITA 
> to port (I tried several times and got stuck due to references to Apple 
> specific frameworks) plus the latter two are (currently) using GTK/GDK, 
> which -- for me -- is a 'no go.'

Actually what I meant is that gnustep-core is complete enough that you 
could write a webbrowser from scratch. Despite what people think, it can 
be done (iCab is a browser for macintosh written by two brothers, very 
heavy-weight, it run on 68k for a long time, it supports javascript, 
jscript and lately CSS is in the works too and mind, it is done in 
classic mac and nowadays carbon, thus far more primitive stuff). There 
is also a browser on windows wirten from scratch wich is reasonably nice.

If you want to stir up the browser argument again, I think web-core is a 
bit of a dead-end. We could hack on libwww (many browser did that), or 
hack on the links graphics core, which even supports some limited 
javascript and is in pure C. Or try to wrap gecko like it was done with 
camino. I think that if we make our own wrappers it could be a nice 
result and possibly even without that monster called obj-c++.

Cheers,
  Riccardo