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Re: ObjC and the dual runtime issue(s)
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Re: ObjC and the dual runtime issue(s)

Hi all,

I think, there may be a kind of "Common Base" Obj-C (something like ANSI C
in the C world), and "dialects".

Historically, Objective-C is now the MAIN driving power of the Macintosh
platform, and I agree that it must be as good and strong as it can be.
Preserving its strongest parts, of course. Consistency and strength are the
natural limiting barriers. Other barriers are artificial.

I am sure both streams of the evolution may bring great new things for all
us.

There are (will be) those distinct species of Objective-C:

- Common Objective-C (restricted variant)
- Apple Objective-C
- GNU Objective-C
- the others (probably, some future incarnations).

Oleg

PS I looked into my angry notes of 2001 (when I started with Objective-C).
There were dozens of suggestions, all quite stupid and short-sighted :)

However, I dare to share some of them with you.

1. A fast way to define NSNumber constants, like it has been done for
NSString?

Sample:
@YES ( [NSNumber numberWithBool:YES])
@123 ( [NSNumber numberWithInt:123])
@123L, @123.5, @123.5d, @0x09AF, @012, @'9' etc...

2. A fast way to define NSArray constants

@{@"what", @23, @127, @'a', @Null} //consists of NSString, NSNumber and
NSNull instances

@{5 = @12, @14, 11 = @21} //0-4 and 7-10 are filled with NSNull

3. Same for a dictionary

@{@"key1" = @11, @"key2" = @{}, @55 = @{@21=, @22=@33=@"Vacant"}}
@{} //an NSArray with 0 items
@21= //key [NSNumber numberWithInt:21] contains NSNull
@22=@23=@"Vacant" //both keys value is @"Vacant"
No way to create an empty dictionary...

4. These could be array{} and @dictionary{} or @[] for an array and @{} for
a dictionary.

In retain/release/autorelease games 1-4 would behave like an NSString
constant.

I must be wrong, but I don't see where it could contradict anything. These
changes would be delicate (?) and subtle.
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References: 
 >Re: ObjC and the dual runtime issue(s) (From: Greg Parker <email@hidden>)



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