Re: purefoundation is yafi (yet another Foundation implementation)

[Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf]

Am 04.06.2009 um 09:48 schrieb Fred Kiefer:

> Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf wrote:
> > There seems to be another Foundation implementation around the corner
> > (o.k. not quite yet):
> >
> > <http://www.puredarwin.org/news/purefoundation>
> > <http://www.hereapi.com/pf/>
> >
> > from their web page:
> >
> > PureFoundation is an attempt to create an open-source, binary  
> > compatible
> > substitute for Apple's closed-source Foundation framework. … <snip> …
> > PureFoundation developer Stuart Crook descibes his new project as
> > follows: In many ways it is similar to GNUStep Base (and may even  
> > share
> > some of its code one day), but it differs in that it makes use of
> > Apple's own Objective-C 2.0 runtime and AutoZone Garbage  
> > Collector  (a
> > nice side effect of which is binary compatibility with Mac OS X.) …
> > <snip> … Many functions will be implemented by bridging to Apple's
> > CF-Lite. Many more will be provided thanks to GNUStep. However, it is
> > unlikely PureFoundation will every replicate all aspects of Apple's
> > Foundation, and the project will certainly never stray into AppKit  
> > and
> > beyond.
>
> Sounds nice to me. Perhaps we could help them to better integrate our
> code. We could think ourselves about splitting of some of the code in
> base into something like CF-Lite, either within the library or as a
> separate one. What would be the overhead of that?

It surely sounds interesting but I think we should sit and wait a  
little and watch how things like http://code.google.com/p/ 
purefoundation/source/browse/ develop before we get into action. This  
wouldn't be the first attempt of such an implementation that finally  
ends up nowhere (I am hoping the opposite). Maybe somebody of the  
"GNUstep officials" (Greg?) could get into contact with them and ask  
about cooperation (or should we wait until they come asking us?)

> That way we could just share the rest of the code and perhaps convince
> the PureDarwin project to use GNUstep gui as their user interface
> library. But I wouldn't expect a big gain in developer force from that
> move, still even a small boost would be great.
> As they aim for binary compatibility with Apple, we would have to  
> break
> our own compatibility. Is this worth it?

I don't know. Maybe it would be helpful if one could use Cocoa  
binaries this way. But I guess this wouldn't be possible because  
Cocoa binaries are in Mach-O format while most unices use something  
else (like ELF). There are converters like http://www.winasm.net/ 
forum/index.php?showtopic=1981 resp. http://www.agner.org/optimize/ 
objconv.zip available but I haven't the faintest idea if this stuff  
would be of any help for us (because all this is way above my level)

> Fred

regards,

        Lars