Re: Objective-C 2.0 and other new features in Leopard

[David Chisnall]

On 13 Nov 2007, at 13:45, Helge Hess wrote:

> On 10.11.2007, at 20:11, Jesse Ross wrote:
> > > To pickup the Ruby example, I'm not aware of any "killer app" Ruby  
> > > or Rails provides.
> > Just to clarify, Rails _is_ Ruby's killer app. Rails is what  
> > propelled Ruby onto the shelves of every bookstore I can think of;  
> > it's what made people take a closer look at Ruby.
>
> I strongly disagree. Rails itself became interesting to users due to  
> the "web 2.0" applications which got built on top of it, eg  
> Basecamp, not by itself. Only _then_ people started to look what  
> those apps got built with and started to do own ones. Well and  
> simple apps are simple to do, simple to deploy on the internet and  
> show everyone, and two weeks later you have da hype just because of  
> a:hover ;-)
>
> Interestingly those "killerapps" were not even killerapps due to RoR  
> (after all the source of those apps isn't even available!) but much  
> more because of Prototype/Scriptaculous and good web-/appdesign (the  
> latter btw also worked well for Plone).
> ("RoR is that web framework which allows me to do yellow fades and  
> drag'n'drop" is the common theme and obvious nonsense ;-)

I'm a bit late replying to this, but is GNUstepWeb still alive?  I've  
tried to use it a few times, including just now and found:

- There is no tutorial at all.  The documentation (and I use the term  
in the loosest possible sense) says 'read the Apple WO4.5 docs.'   
Unfortunately, these all talk about using WebObject Builder, a GUI  
tool that doesn't appear to have a GSWeb analogue (maybe there is one,  
but nothing I could find told me about it) and so are completely  
useless.
- The example code is confusing at best.  It does weird things like  
implement classes which contain nothing but methods which do nothing  
except call the superclass implementation.  Presumably this is done  
for a reason, but I have no idea what it could possibly be.
- The web page hasn't been updated in some years.  Checking again now,  
it appears that the site now redirects to an almost content-free page  
on the GNUstep Wiki.

The documentation for Seaside is pretty lacking, but I could make a  
simple web app using it quite quickly and then play at extending it.   
With GNUstepWeb I simply have no idea where to begin.  Seaside also  
has some really nice integration with Scriptaculous, which makes it  
easy to produce shiny-looking web apps.  Is there any equivalent for  
GSWeb?  I would love to be able to recycle model objects written for  
GNUstep and just bold on a new GUI to turn a desktop app into a web  
app, and this could be a killer app for GNUstep, but after reading  
what passes for documentation with GNUstepWeb I still have no idea if  
this is possible.

David