Re: Gorm source reorganization

[Gregory John Casamento]

Richard,

--- Richard Frith-Macdonald <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 2005-03-29 03:12:23 +0100 Gregory John Casamento 
> <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > Policy concerning Frameworks vs. Libraries: Basically if the code depends
> on
> > any resources to be present, it's going to be a framework, if not, it'll be
> 
> > a
> > library.
> 
> That doesn't sound wise ... frameworks are explicitly 'not supported' under 
> windows (and possibly don't work an a variety of other platforms either), 
> and don't actually add any functionality that we don't already have in 
> bundles.  It makes more sense to use libraries where no resources are 
> rquired, and bundles where resources are needed.
> I know Nicola recently argued for a 'clean-up' of the structure of Gorm ... 
> but my reading of it was that he was suggesting making it more portable not 
> less portable.

The reorg branch does build on Windows quite nicely now, but only because I
have some if's in the makefiles to compile the GormPrefs framework as a
library. :)

I am attempting to make it more portable.  I was unaware of the problems with
frameworks on Windows and other platforms.  I will revert the GormPrefs
framework back to a library.    Thanks for the info.
 
> Back when framework support for gnu/linux was first introduced, Helge argued 
> for *not* introducing frameworks, on the grounds that they add no 
> functionality but supporting/maintaining them implies time-wasting 
> overtheads.  Now that they have been around for a while, I tend to agree 
> with him, and while I don't work on the make system and the framework code 
> myself, so I'm not about to do anything there, if there was a move to drop 
> framework support entirely, I certainly wouldn't argue against it, and I'd 
> defintely adviuse anyone attempting to write portable code to use the 
> simpler bundle mechanism.
> 
> I don't know exactly what Nicola means by 'not supported' on windows ... it 
> might mean that he has no intention of ever trying to get frameworks to work 
> there, it might mean that he hasn't had the time.  From previous discussion 
> on the way frameworks are implemented elsewhere, I don't think anyone has 
> even figured out a way to implement them on windows without making multiple 
> copies of files cluttering things up (and introducing tremendous fragility), 
> or persuading compiler/linker people to build in support for them.

It would be nice if we could find some way to support them as they seem to be a
nice way of keeping resources in one place.   But if they're not supported on
all platforms, I won't use the for the time being in Gorm.

Thanks, GJC

Gregory John Casamento 
-- CEO/President Open Logic Corp. (A MD Corp.)
## Maintainer of Gorm (IB Equiv.) for GNUstep.