> Am 19.05.2025 um 23:08 schrieb Andreas Fink via Discussion list for the
> GNUstep programming environment <[email protected]>:
>
>
>>> And I believe supporting swift would then would make things even worse as
>>> its even further away. We have to modernize GNUStep to keep up with the
>>> current tools. That doesn't mean we need to implement everything Apple has
>>> added in the last 20 years, but at least a fundamental subset so 95% of
>>> Apps could be ported without any major issues. And in my eyes ARC must
>>> absolutely be supported in the default installations. Expecting a newcomer
>>> to first recompile GNUStep (which has quite a few pitfalls if you do it for
>>> the first time) can easily discurage new developers.
>>
>> ARC is already supported in GNUstep when using clang. I am confused
>
> It is supported when using clang AND libobjc2
>
> This means when gnustep-base is compiled with the old runtime, you can not
> write code which uses ARC as the runtime doesnt support it.
> Hence take the newest debian release (or next release) do an apt-get install
> gnustep-gui etc and you have a working gnustep system but you can not write
> any modern code on it. You can only look at prebuilt binaries but not do
> anything yourself (if you require ARC). Thats the giant showstopper in my
> eyes to get new developers on board.
So maybe GNUstep should declare (for whatever exactly that means), that clang
AND libobjc2 are the default build options and GCC and it’s libojbc are
considered legacy, which we still try to support. What do you think?
Kind regards,
Lars
