Re: Cocotron

[Gregory John Casamento]

Helge,

> No, I honestly don't. Maybe you lack the history / insight in the  
> various "similiar" projects? Did you even try to ask them why they  
> don't use GNUstep? :-)

No, in the case of Cocotron, I haven't.  But given that Cocotron's aim seems 
very clear, as you pointed out in your previous email, I don't have to.   They 
seem focused on Windows portability.   Windows portability is only one part of 
what GNUstep is after.   Imagine if he had spent some of that effort helping 
out the GNUstep project with Windows portability instead of re-inventing the 
wheel to such a great degree and, I might add, not doing it as well as we have. 
  The list of problems I found in Cocotron in my previous email are the result 
of looking at it for only about 10 minutes.  I'm certain that what I found only 
scratches the surface.

> Possibly. This depends on what GNUstep "is". If its a desktop  
> environment, its obviously a fork.
> Now its your task to define what GNUstep is, convince the developers  
> and move it forward. If that involves dropping the idea of creating a  
> desktop environment and promoting Etoile for that task, its IMHO a  
> good idea.

GNUstep is a development env./API only.   The desktop apps that are currently 
in the GNUstep SVN repo are there for the sake of convenience only and are not 
meant to imply that GNUstep is a desktop environment.   The GNUstep project's 
focus now and in the future shall be on it's API and cross-platform development 
capabilities.

> This paragraph is full of incorrectness'es. Only one of them,  
> Cocotron, does Foundation/AppKit and is recent. I don't know the  
> reasons but it seems to be rather clear: a) other license, b) Windows  
> deployment focus. GNUstep had no focus in the past.
> (BTW: stating that GNUstep is a viable cross platform _solution_ is  
> ridiculous. Having a way to target Windows seems like a great thing  
> to me, and something I often proposed)

The fact is that GNUstep can be used to compile Cocoa apps which do not use 
Carbon or certain parts of Cocoa cleanly on Windows.  (I would like to add here 
that Cocotron is missing a significant number of Cocoa classes as well.)   The 
problem with GNUstep on Windows is that it doesn't blend in at all.  It looks 
terrible.  The menus are floating, etc ,etc.   GNUstep also has issues on 
Windows which make it difficult to use on that platform.   There are bugs in 
the backend which make apps function incorrectly in some cases.    On other 
platforms GNUstep functions very well... BSD, Linux, Solaris, etc. 

> AJRFoundation AFAIK is just a Foundation _addon_ (like SOPE  
> NGExtensions). Its more like a concurrent to GDL2, but was also  
> started when it was unusable (it made no sense to build upon GLD2).

My mistake... I had been led to believe that AJRFoundation was something else, 
but you're right.. it's an addon.


> libFoundation was started a looooong time ago (~1995?), when gnustep- 
> base was extremely immature wrt to OpenStep compatibility, and more  
> importantly wrt code quality.

I understand why libFoundation exists.  My point, quite simply, is that 
gnustep-base does so much more than libFoundation at this point, there's little 
need for libFoundation at all.

> BTW: lF isn't really being "developed" anymore, its just kept in  
> shape. It just works and does all we need in our limited scope. Its  
> no waste of time for us because fixing gstep-base to match our  
> requirements is still quite a big effort, while keeping libFoundation  
> is a matter of a few days per year at most.

Would you mind documenting what fixes/changes you feel are necessary to 
gstep-base to make it more palatable for your project?

Thanks,

--
Gregory Casamento
## GNUstep Chief Maintainer

----- Original Message ----
From: Helge Hess <helge.hess@opengroupware.org>
To: GNUstep Discussion <discuss-gnustep@gnu.org>
Sent: Saturday, December 23, 2006 7:16:03 PM
Subject: Re: Cocotron

On Dec 24, 2006, at 24:35, Gregory John Casamento wrote:
> I believe that you understand perfectly what I was saying. :)

No, I honestly don't. Maybe you lack the history / insight in the  
various "similiar" projects? Did you even try to ask them why they  
don't use GNUstep? :-)

> Etoile is a desktop project which uses GNUstep (see http:// 
> www.etoile-project.org/etoile/mediawiki/index.php? 
> title=EtoileWiki:About), not a reimplementation of any part of  
> Cocoa. So, I don't think Etoile even remotely, by the most wild  
> stretch of the imagination possible, fits into the same category as  
> the other things I mentioned.

Possibly. This depends on what GNUstep "is". If its a desktop  
environment, its obviously a fork.
Now its your task to define what GNUstep is, convince the developers  
and move it forward. If that involves dropping the idea of creating a  
desktop environment and promoting Etoile for that task, its IMHO a  
good idea.

> The projects libFoundation, Cocotron and AJRFoundation are re- 
> implementations of Foundation/AppKit. There is no reason, aside  
> from obstinance or ego which should cause so many projects with  
> similar or identical goals to develop things in parallel.  It is,  
> purely and simply, an egregious waste of time and effort.   Well  
> understood, but not reasonable at all.

This paragraph is full of incorrectness'es. Only one of them,  
Cocotron, does Foundation/AppKit and is recent. I don't know the  
reasons but it seems to be rather clear: a) other license, b) Windows  
deployment focus. GNUstep had no focus in the past.
(BTW: stating that GNUstep is a viable cross platform _solution_ is  
ridiculous. Having a way to target Windows seems like a great thing  
to me, and something I often proposed)

AJRFoundation AFAIK is just a Foundation _addon_ (like SOPE  
NGExtensions). Its more like a concurrent to GDL2, but was also  
started when it was unusable (it made no sense to build upon GLD2).

libFoundation was started a looooong time ago (~1995?), when gnustep- 
base was extremely immature wrt to OpenStep compatibility, and more  
importantly wrt code quality.
BTW: lF isn't really being "developed" anymore, its just kept in  
shape. It just works and does all we need in our limited scope. Its  
no waste of time for us because fixing gstep-base to match our  
requirements is still quite a big effort, while keeping libFoundation  
is a matter of a few days per year at most.


Most projects with duplicate code pathes I know in the ObjC area are  
duplicates due to historical reasons, not because someone didn't want  
to work together. Now merging those high quality DUPs is quite some  
work.

Greets,
   Helge
-- 
Helge Hess
http://docs.opengroupware.org/Members/helge/




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