On Fri, 24 Dec 2021 at 13:31, Gregory Casamento
<greg.casamento@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> ??? I'm wondering why Cocoa wouldn't be well known.
As I always keep saying: my interest (here, there are others!) is
operating systems, and the article was about software packaging for
Linux distributions and the subsequent piece was about how the
evolution of packaging tools is influencing the development and
cons truction of Linux distros.
https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/nixos_linux_os_design/
Remember, altho' I know that for the majority of the small GNUstep
community, it's a framework for app developers, a tool for
programmers, it is also more than that. As a proportion of the
computer-using human race, not many people are programmers. Most just
use computers, they don't program them.
What I think we need to do is come up with a reference distro.
A lot of Linux users are interested in look and feel. They enjoy
customising their OSes, trying different ones, changing UIs and
desktops. They can't program and they're not interested in
programming.
Right, but characterizing GNUstep by comparing it to an OS that has a look that nearly everyone has recognized as being obsolete does nothing to help GNUstep in the long run. While I understand what you're saying your view is not the common one. Most programmers AND non-programmers view it very much in the way I am saying. I know this because after going to many conventions to speak about GNUstep the feedback I invariably got was about the look. No matter HOW much I told people that we were following Cocoa's APIs it didn't matter... because we looked like NEXTSTEP we, in their minds, only implemented NEXTSTEP.
Cocoa is a codename for an API for a proprietary OS for proprietary
hardware. These days it's the only API and the OS has abandoned 32-bit
platforms and no longer offers the other API, Carbon; the name Cocoa
was one of a pair of codenames, Cocoa and Carbon, for a triplet of
APIs.
[Cocoa] for Yellow Box, Carbon for Blue Box, and the now-forgotten Red
Box for running Windows apps on Rhapsody:
https://lowendmac.com/1997/red-box-blue-box-yellow-box/
I recall these. I also remember Red-box... I was hoping there would be some way to run Windows apps, but I believe they decided not to do that since it would have placed an extra burden on the development teams.
And the Java API too, also now gone because it was farmed out to
Oracle after Oracle bought Sun.
I think the reason it was abandoned is that ObjC adopted ARC which is not compatible with garbage collection. This is the reason why the ruby bridge was also abandoned.
These are historical terms now, and they're only interesting or
relevant to programmers on the Apple platform.
If you search Apple.com for the word Cocoa you get a 2013 document
with a warning on it that it is archived historical content:
https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/CocoaFundamentals/WhatIsCocoa/WhatIsCocoa.html
NeXTstep remains relatively widely-known and respected as the OS that
was the ancestor of macOS.
There are emulators to run it:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/previous/
There are docs explaining how to run the Intel version in a VM:
http://stuffjasondoes.com/2018/07/25/installing-nextstep-os-openstep-on-virtualbox-in-2018/
There is or was a NeXTstep GUI for Windows:
http://litestep.net/
It's funny I didn't know about this one.
There are multiple NeXTstep-like window managers for free xNix OSes,
including Window Maker, OpenBox, BlackBox, FluxBox and others.
NeXTstep is a thing in the public consciousness. It is something a
reasonably well-informed techie has probably heard of. It's Steve
Jobs' pet project before he returned to Apple.
Cocoa is an obsolete codename for a tool for programmers. It is not
well-known to the general public, to whom it means a hot drink or the
stuff chocolate is made from.
So I submit it is a *much* less useful word.
And NeXTSTEP or OPENSTEP is somehow NOT OBSOLETE!? I submit that those are even LESS useful if Cocoa is, as you say, less useful.
> Of Cocoa. :) My point was, from reading the article, if someone doesn't know the heritage of Cocoa, then they will read that as "GNUstep is a clone of NeXTSTEP."
Which, to a non-programmer, it is.
Part of the issue here is that non-programmers believe this and think it's dead because our DEFAULT look is NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP like. Let me say this... who gives a hoot WHAT the default is when the theme is so flexible it can be made to look like anything.
>> Is the .app folder bundle format part of Cocoa, the API, anyway?
>
> Part of the API? Not necessarily, but part of the OS, yes, absolutely. macOS/Cocoa still uses it.
So it's not part of Cocoa as an API, and therefore, using the word
Cocoa at this point and in that context would have in fact been
unhelpful and misleading.
Strongly disagree. GNUstep is following the Cocoa API. We should make it evident that it's look is very flexible. Saying "GNUSTEP IS NEXTSTEP" in the press is NOT helpful.
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