Re: GNUstep base vs libobjc

[percy tiglao]

On 9/21/05, Adrian Robert <arobert@cogsci.ucsd.edu> wrote:
>
> On Sep 21, 2005, at 3:55 AM, Sašo Kiselkov wrote:
>
> > Quoting percy tiglao <prtiglao@gmail.com>:
>
> >> I do not feel like stepping all the way into the NeXT framework, but
> >> I'd like to use Objc as a development language (I'm going to be
> >> building games, and portability to both Windows and Linux is a top
> >> issue) If you are curious, I'm planning on SDL/OpenGL in Obj-C
> >
> > You can, of course, use the plain libobjc with your classes
> > derived directly from Object, but then you're throwing away all the
> > comfort of
> > OpenStep. OpenStep's Objective-C part is basically split into two
> > library:
> >
> > - FoundationKit (gnustep-base), which is a library of abstract base
> > classes
> > containing things like unicode strings, object containers and neat
> > features
> > such as semi-automatic garbage collection (makes memory management a
> > _LOT_
> > easier without the overhead of a full garbage collector).
> >
> > - ApplicationKit (gnustep-gui&back) is a library of graphical elements
> > such as
> > buttons, windows, sliders, menus etc. for building graphical
> > applications.
> >
> > The reason why this is kept separate is to allow developers to develop
> > both gui
> > and non-gui applications with the full comfort of Foundation and it's
> > prepared
> > solutions to many common problems. Personally, I'd recomment in your
> > case to
> > make use of Foundation (gnustep-base), but not AppKit.
>
> I second this.  I developed a fairly involved application just using
> libobjc, and ended up writing myself a lot of basic facilities that
> Foundation gives you for free -- for data structures and things like
> that.  A lot of time spent that I didn't need to.  Also, if you need
> them, there are additional packages like netclasses just mentioned on
> the list, and an SQL database wrapper library that just use Foundation
> and are very useful.
>
>

Okay, just an update on my situation :-)

I'm AM going to do GNUstep-base, I've looked over the docs and
GNUstep-base does have a load of things that I want in it, so woot :)

Now, there were a few problems that I ran into  when setting up msys
and mingw. However, the main problem (specifically with ffcall) was
addressed in the wiki (at
http://mediawiki.gnustep.org/index.php/Installation_on_Windows) So
anyone in my situation should follow those instructions.

Second, I didn't know how to make a GNUmakefile using only
GNUstep-base. Reading the docs shows me that you should include
"tool.make" at the end... here is a sample of what I did:

=======
include $(GNUSTEP_MAKEFILES)/common.make

TOOL_NAME = test
test_OBJC_FILES = test.m

-include GNUmakefile.preamble
include $(GNUSTEP_MAKEFILES)/tool.make
-include GNUmakefile.postamble
=======

I should note that the GNUmakefile documentation is alright... but I
think it could do better (looks a bit incomplete). I spent an hour
trying to figure out why "TOOL_PROGRAM_NAME=test" wouldn't work till I
looked into the tool.make file and found out that it is supposed to be
"TOOL_NAME".

A couple more examples on GNUmakefile would be excellent, and those
one-liners for sections should be replaced with a bit more info :)

So bottom line, for anyone else who has problems linking only to
GNUstep-base, make a GNUmakefile like the one in the ===== marks
above.

Thanks for all your help btw.

Percy