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From: rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: What we need to do REAL NeXT applications... (was: Re: NeXT/GNU license agreement w.r.t. Objective-C)
Message-ID: <59713@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 18 Dec 90 01:38:08 GMT
References: <1990Dec10.130953.12476@engage.enet.dec.com> <130131@gore.com>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: rca@cs.brown.edu (Ronald C.F. Antony)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 36

In article <130131@gore.com> jacob@gore.com (Jacob Gore) writes:
>/ comp.sys.next / tenny@z.dec.com (Dave Tenny) / Dec 10, 1990 /
>> If the implementation of Obj-c by GNU means GNU support of Obj-c,
>> then this would imply that the Gnu Obj-c implementations will ultimately
>> end up running everywhere that gcc/g++ do.  Is this true?
>
>The 2.0 "gcc" compiler will compile C, C++, and Objective-C (the latter
>using work done at NeXT).  However, there is as yet no run-time support for
>Objective-C (the messager library) for the GNU distribution.  FSF is
>looking for a volunteer to write one.

I hope NeXT publishes the runtime sytem as well (of course I understand that
they will not publish their appkit...). What do we really need if we
want to program the NeXT way?

- GNU-licensed Objective-C compiler (we have it now....)
- GNU-licensed code for speaker-listener
- GNU-licensed code for the basic classes like object, storage,
hashtable, list, ...

With this at hand we not only could develop client server applications
that are data format compatible with the NeXT and do things like
expensive calculations or database access or something like this, 
but also it is easier to write applications that can share data with
NeXT applications. Last but not least, applications developed on the
NeXT can,  if really a need exists, be ported much easier to another platform.

Just immagine if you had not to care in network code or distributed
programs if it is a NeXT or not you are talking to, just use
speaker/listener anyway. 

Ronald
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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists
in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man."   G.B. Shaw   |  rca@cs.brown.edu or antony@browncog.bitnet