GNUstep is a set of general-purpose Objective-C libraries based on the OpenStep standard developed by NeXT Inc. This release features many improvements and enhancements of various classes, including NSPopUpButton, NSBitmapImageRep, NSMenu, and NSToolbar. Support for thumbnail images was implemented in NSWorkspace. On other toolkit news, wxWindows 2.4.2 was released recently.
GNUstep 0.9.0 Released
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Are there any plans for a non-X11 linux backend? I’ve heard mutterings about DirectFB, but nothing solid.
GNUStep is more or less Cocoa (Mac OS X) – i wonder how compatible both are.. anyone ?
Their resources are limited, they are much better off finishing the X11 part and add support for all Openstep functions than wasting resources to a gfx backend that no one reallly uses.
At one point, I believe they had a Win32 backend, but I don’t think it’s been maintained or fleshed out. It may come back to life if there’s need for it, suppose.
> – i wonder how compatible both are.. anyone ?
There is an FAQ about this on their site. Basically, developers are encouraged to develop their app for Gnustep and then backport it to Cocoa, and not the other way around, because Gnustep does not support all of openstep and the additions/changes found in Cocoa’s API.
As long developers take into account GNUstep and develop for it as opposed to “backport to it later”, it is very possible to be able to develop a fully cross platfrom app. Like gnumail.app for example: http://www.collaboration-world.com/cgi-bin/project/index.cgi?pid=2/
Where did this release information come from? It doesn’t seem to be news on the gnustep website(s).
Here:
http://mail.gnu.org/archive/html/discuss-gnustep/2003-09/msg00378.h…
Download the source here:
ftp://ftp.gnustep.org/pub/gnustep/core/gnustep-back-0.9.0.tar.gz
Is this true that they aren’t making progress with the Win32 back end?
I would like to learn Objective C. Do I learn directly or would it be better learning Smalltalk first=
learn C first, if you don’t know it. If you do know C, personally I go right to objective C. I can’t imagine the time vs. reward tradeoff would make learning Smalltalk worthwhile as a step to Objective C.
Not to argue the point, but maybe if there were a good application toolkit, (Like GNUStep, whick kicks major booty) more people would use DirectFB.
And don’t give me that “Why give up X?” or “People need network transparency” crud. You wouldn’t have to give up anything. DirectFB has it’s own X server. If GNUStep could run on DirectFB, you could build a truly OS X like free linux desktop.
who else uses Objective C? Seems to not be quite as popular as C or C++. I’ve read many times that Objective C is better than C++, but I really wouldn’t know the difference. Although, I have looked at small Objective C code snippets and it looks kinda wierd.
I thought this project was going to help bring a complete OpenStep/NextStep desktop to Unix, but so far I haven’t seen anything dramatic. I’ve always like the way that NextStep looked and worked. It’s simple and functional. I guess we’ll wait and see what happens when it’s completed I guess.
I know this is offtopic but i have found a md5sum program for Windows. See http://www.md5summer.org
Yes, me too. As I said many days ago to that thread, the md5sum was not the problem. My cd burner was simply dead.
who else uses Objective C? Seems to not be quite as popular as C or C++. I’ve read many times that Objective C is better than C++, but I really wouldn’t know the difference.
Yup. That’s the rub. I’ve got a big pile of C++ books on my shelf, and have invested a lot of time learning C++. It works good enough for me, and I like the flexibility.
I suppose if you can program in C, don’t know C++, and are a pretty hardcore Mac user, then obj-C/Cocoa/GNUstep might be up your alley. Especially if you have some good domain knowledge in some other subject and you’re just using the programming language as a tool to get your project done — obj-C is supposed to be pretty simple, and I hear that OpenStep has a well-thought-out and good design.
Personally, I just discovered Toad (C++ GUI toolkit) http://www.mark13.de/toad/ and so far it looks sweeeeeet.
I’ve used both, as well as Java. There are some neat things you can do with C++ that you can’t do with Obj-C, such as templates, multiple inheritence and operator overloading. Overall however, I find I like programming in Obj-C over C++. I wish it would catch on, but I’m sure it won’t any time soon, if ever.
I like Cocoa programming and I would like to port some of my programs to GNUstep but GNUstep is just so damn ugly. It reminds me of those old X terminals that I used 10 years ago.
What I would like to see is a GTK+ backend for GNUstep but I am probably just being wishful.
You know, there really isn’t any need to avoid Objective-C just because you know C++ well. The syntax of Objective-C can be picked up in an hour by someone who knows C well.
Granted, you’ll want to make sure you know C well, and not just C++. The differences are minor, Obj-C is a perfect superset of C, while C++ changes some things from C rather than just tacking new stuff on.
Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.
GNUstep looks AND acts exactly like NeXT/OPENSTEP did, and to me, that was and still is the most visually pleasing, sexiest, Desktop Environment (if you can call it that) TO DATE.
If you do want a different look, use http://www.roard.com/camaelon/
I love the NeXTStep look and feel too. However I also realize that commercial development generally caters to the average user. The average user wants what they know, and the NeXTStep way of seeing things isn’t that. A toggle switch would be good. A new backend could be a solution, but I haven’t investigated what that entails. I would think that would be quite an undertaking.
There are some neat things you can do with C++ that you can’t do with Obj-C, such as templates, multiple inheritence and operator overloading. Overall however, I find I like programming in Obj-C over C++. I wish it would catch on, but I’m sure it won’t any time soon, if ever.
Well, in fact the way you program in ObjC is a bit different than with C++. It’s largelly similar to Smalltalk, that is, you have with ObjC a true OO langage, dynamic. While you can’t do some C++ things in ObjC, you can’t do many great things ObjC provides automatically in C++ (well, it’s always possible to hack something similar for C++, it’s just that you won’t be compatible with STL, with the overall C++ way of life, and you’ll end with a bad syntax).
For example, you could add automatically new methods to objects at runtime, add new classes, load new code, replace existing code, etc. Of coure, you have introspection, message forwarding and in bonus distributed objects for free. Multiple inheritance isn’t possible, but that’s not a big problem, because 1) honnestly, it’s quite rare to use it 2) if you need something similar, you could use Behaviors or anyway do something neat with message forwarding. Operator overloading is, imho, a bad idea which sounds good at first glance, but is generally a bad thing in the long run… Templates could be interesting, but it’s a bit against the philosophy of ObjC, while everything is object (so in fact you don’t have as much incentive to use templates as in C++, performances considerations aside).
The langage itself is really cool, it’s just an OO superset to the ANSI C, done well. Only one syntaxic difference and few additional keywords. To learn ObJC is a matter of hours… what’s longer, as always, is to learn the Framework. But don’t be scared by the langage, it’s really easy and permits excellent things 🙂
The programming Framework itself (OpenStep) is imho one of the greatest ever done. Truely object-oriented, plenty of design patterns, well designed. I also like Qt, but in fact, Qt has many similarities to OpenStep (surprise) and the Qt’s mechanism of signals/slots is simply the way ObjC works !!!
… the overall C++ way of life, and you’ll end with a bad syntax
What do you mean, you END up with a bad syntax? Isn’t that the way C++ is supposed to be? 😉
SCNR
Last couple of times I tried to compile the gnustep basics I ran into multiple issues.
Are there packages of any of this stuff available?
When in doubt, learn both. Once you learn a language in a particular discipline (like pure-OO or functional or procedural or generic, etc) it is very easy to pick up another language in the same discipline.
Only one syntactic difference? Why do people keep saying that? Unless I misunderstand the meaning of the word “syntax”, Obj-C has many syntactic differences with C. This is not a complaint against Obj-C, I just want people to stop misrepresenting it.
Only one syntactic difference? Why do people keep saying that?
Because it’s true ? 🙂
Unless I misunderstand the meaning of the word “syntax”, Obj-C has many syntactic differences with C. This is not a complaint against Obj-C, I just want people to stop misrepresenting it.
I think you misunderstand the meaning of the word syntax, yes.
The only syntactic difference between C and Objective-C is the new meaning of the brackets ([ ]), which are used to express the notion of sending messages. That is :
[anObject doSomethingWith: anotherObject];
Send the message “doSomethingWith:” to anObject, with anotherObject as parameter.
Additionally, there are a few keywords (@interface, @implementation, @end, etc.) but that’s all.
More informations on Objective-C and GNUstep could be find on this page : http://www.roard.com/docs/
http://simplygnustep.sourceforge.net/
Some guy from Simply GNUstep is working on a non-X11 backend.
Take a look at http://www.gnustep.org/resources/sources.html that lists RPMs for a couple of Linux distributions, like Suse, YellowDog and Debian.
On FreeBSD, simply change into /usr/ports/devel/gnustep and type make.