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

[Yavor Doganov]

Gregory Casamento wrote:
> On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 3:01 PM Yavor Doganov <yavor@gnu.org> wrote:
> > The answer is simple: because there's a lot to lose and nothing to
> > gain.

> This is patently incorrect.  The gain is time and compatibility with
> the latest code base.  I laid out the advantages and disadvantages
> of this in my previous posting.

There are no advantages for the current GNUstep packages in Debian
which is the main point I was trying to make.  I don't dispute the
fact that dropping support for GCC will simplify things a lot for
you.  At certain cost, of course, which you consider negligible.

> * More Applications, more applications means more end users (sort of
> chicken and egg thing)

That's purely hypothetical to the extent of being mere speculation.
GNUstep supports Clang and David's runtime for quite some time now,
why there are no more applications?  Why existing GNUstep applications
have not been updated to take advantage of the new features?

> What's to lose:
> * Possibly a political issue with the FSF, but there are other projects
> which depend on languages not implemented by GCC.

I'm not aware of any GNU package written in a compiled language that
cannot be built with GCC.

I don't know what you mean by "political issue" but such a drastic
change should be discussed with the GNU Project of which GNUstep is
still part of.  It is wrong to decide it with a vote that doesn't even
specify simple things like who is eligible to vote and based on what
majority the decision is going to be taken.  As a GNU maintainer you
should know these things.

> * Support for older platforms which ONLY support gcc.

RISC-V is the newest GNU/Linux architecture and it's not yet supported
by Clang.

> So, I apologize if I don't agree with the "nothing to gain" opinion.

You are free to disagree.  But as it often happens with real life, the
loss may become obvious only post factum...  You could be left only
with the "gain" which may not look like a big gain then.  It could
even look more like you have shot yourself in the foot.