GDL2 on MacOS X

FROM : Stéphane Corthésy
DATE : Mon Nov 18 09:46:10 2002

(this message has been cross-posted to macosx-dev and eof mailing=20
lists, in order to attract Cocoa developer to gnustep-dev mailing-list;=20=

please, post your replies only on gnustep-dev mailing-list)

Hi,

As soon as I saw the announce of GDL2, I tried to compile it on MacOS=20
X. I could make it compile, but it was not painless... Currently, it=20
just compiles, but it cannot work (I haven't implemented some methods,=20=

and haven't tested anything, as I don't know the current state of gdl2).

My ugly patch is available here:

ftp://ftp.sente.ch/pub/beta/gdl2-macosx.patch.gz

I have some questions now:
- What is the current state of gdl2?? How compatible is it with EOF 2?=20=

WebObjects 4.5's EOF implementation?
- Do gdl2 developers plan to support MacOS X? If they reply "no", no=20
need to read remaining questions ;-)
- Does it even compile on a GNUStep system?? I had to correct some=20
code, independant of platform.
- gdl2 depends on GNUStep-specific classes, like GCArray, etc. Can this=20=

dependency be removed? There are also references to methods not=20
implemented in MacOS X, like subclassResponsibility:, but in these=20
cases we could implement categories on MacOS X for GNUStep=20
compatibility.
- gdl2 is not consistent regarding retain/release and garbage=20
collecting; sometimes macros are used for retain/release, sometimes=20
method calls are used. How should it be done?
- EOControl and EOAccess were 2 different frameworks in EOF, and=20
EOControl had no dependency on EOAccess. In gdl2, this is no longer the=20=

case...
- On MacOS X, there is now a NSClassDescription class, and categories=20
on NSObject implementing -entityName, etc. This means that either=20
GNUStep should implement them all (if not yet done?), or we should=20
rewrite that part for MacOS X. Conflicting categories are no good.

Finally, I suppose there are a lot of Cocoa developers willing to use=20
EOF... erh gdl2 ;-)
I suppose GNUStep people will find help among them. There are also a=20
lot of former OpenStep/WO4 developers that could help, now that there=20
is a concrete opensource EOF for Cocoa. So please, subscribe to that=20
list, checkout gdl2 and give GNUStep developers needed help. I'll try=20
to.

Thanks for providing this long-awaited EOF-clone!!!

St=E9phane