[Biococoa-dev] modernizing BioCocoa

[Scott Christley]

Hi Koen,

I wrote those macros a long time ago, because GNUstep does not have CoreFoundation.  I tend to forget to use them because I'm so used to just writing for loops ;-)  I think FE is part of the objc2 compiler, so no it isn't standard for GNUstep yet.  You could probably change the Cocoa version of the macros to use FE.

Scott

On May 28, 2011, at 10:56 PM, Koen van der Drift wrote:

> Thanks Scott, I just committed a first set of updates. It turns out
> that a lot of the for, while, or do loops in the framework are not so
> straightforward, so I may just leave them as they are. FE only seems
> to be for simple enumerations. But someone please correct me if this
> is not the case.
> 
> I also noticed several macros to manipulate arrays in GNUStep, e.g.
> ARRAY_GET_VALUE_AT_INDEX as an alternative to CoreFoundation. Does
> GNUStep support FE, and if so, can those macros be replaced by FE?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> - Koen.
> 
> On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 11:09 PM, Scott Christley <schristley at mac.com> wrote:
>> Hi Koen,
>> 
>> So the instructions to make an SVN branch can essentially be taken from the SVN repository tasks in the release checklist off the wiki:
>> 
>> http://www.bioinformatics.org/biococoa/wiki/pmwiki.php?n=Main.ReleaseChecklist
>> 
>> The basic idea is go to the BioCocoa directory, issue an svn copy command for the trunk into the branches directory, then commit
>> 
>> svn copy trunk branches/libobjc2-work
>> svn commit -m "Koen's branch..."
>> 
>> then you can work in that branch directory just like normal.
>> 
>> cheers
>> Scott
>> 
>> On May 28, 2011, at 10:03 PM, Koen van der Drift wrote:
>> 
>>> Hi Scott,
>>> 
>>> Yes, please send me instructions on how to make a svn branch. I'm
>>> still reading on all the new stuff of ObjC2 and trying to get my head
>>> around all of it, so it may be a while before I start committing
>>> things.  Maybe you can add some of your ideas for new functionality to
>>> a todo list in the repository?
>>> 
>>> I'll start with fast enumerations, deprecated methods, and maybe
>>> properties for a cleaner code.
>>> 
>>> - Koen.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> On Sat, May 28, 2011 at 10:23 PM, Scott Christley <schristley at mac.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi Koen,
>>>> 
>>>> Making a svn branch is a good idea, then you can work and still commit changes as you get milestones done.  If you are not sure how to create, I can send instructions.  There is an open-source ObjC2 being actively written by the llvm/clang folks, and they have been working so that it can compile all of GNUstep, but I'm not sure it is at production level yet.
>>>> 
>>>> Personally I would avoid garbage collecting, there is already a solid retain-release implementation with minimal leaks, and there are numerous places where autorelease pools are used to manage large chunks of temporary objects (like parsing data files), this is more efficient memory management for that time of stuff.
>>>> 
>>>> Cleaning up warnings would definitely be great.  Properties... maybe, but doesn't add a whole lot.  Fast enumeration is probably nice.  There is always documentation :-)  Even better is if you have the time/inclination to add some new functionality, I have a whole slew of ideas from quick to hard.
>>>> 
>>>> cheers
>>>> Scott
>>>> 
>>>> On May 28, 2011, at 1:37 PM, Koen van der Drift wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> All,
>>>>> 
>>>>> I recently started looking again at Cocoa programming, and what better
>>>>> way to dive back into BioCocoa to get my memory refreshed!  While
>>>>> reading some current Cocoa docs from Apple, I learned that since my
>>>>> absence many new features have been added to ObjC, now called ObjC2.
>>>>> Probably nothing new for y'all :)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Things I'm talking about are fast enumeration, garbage collecting,
>>>>> properties, cleaning up warnings because of deprecated methods, and
>>>>> maybe more.
>>>>> 
>>>>> So, I was thinking as a first task for me is to go through the
>>>>> framework, and implement/update the code with (some of) the above
>>>>> mentioned features.  This would also mean that the lowest OS that
>>>>> BioCocoa will run on is OSX 10.5, which is when ObjectiveC2 was
>>>>> introduced.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Are there any objections to this plan? I could for instance make a new
>>>>> branch for this, maybe tagged version 2.5 or 3.0?
>>>>> 
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> 
>>>>> - Koen.
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Biococoa-dev mailing list
>>>>> Biococoa-dev at bioinformatics.org
>>>>> http://www.bioinformatics.org/mailman/listinfo/biococoa-dev
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 
>>