[9fans] OT: New Obj-C runtime

[9fans] OT: New Obj-C runtime

[Jack Johnson]

Off-topic, as always, I thought some folks might find this
interesting, if not humorous:

https://mail.gna.org/public/etoile-dev/2007-11/msg00000.html

>From the overview:

"The other runtime, currently used by GNUstep, is the GNU runtime. I
have done a little work on this and submitted a patch to allow
prototype-based object orientation to be supported. There are a few
problems with this runtime:
[...]
 - It is written in GNU coding style, which hurts my eyes and brain."

"The existing GNU runtime is 11,688 lines.3 The new runtime weights in
at a little over 10% of this size. Note that the size for the new
library includes test cases and examples, while the GNU version does
not. In terms of compiled code, the new library is closer to 15% of
the size of the GNU implementation. The entire library was written by
one person over two days, which should give some idea of its
simplicity."

-Jack

Re: [9fans] OT: New Obj-C runtime

[David Leimbach]

On Nov 11, 2007 9:22 AM, Jack Johnson <knapjack@gmail.com> wrote:
> Off-topic, as always, I thought some folks might find this
> interesting, if not humorous:
>
> https://mail.gna.org/public/etoile-dev/2007-11/msg00000.html
>
> >From the overview:
>
> "The other runtime, currently used by GNUstep, is the GNU runtime. I
> have done a little work on this and submitted a patch to allow
> prototype-based object orientation to be supported. There are a few
> problems with this runtime:
> [...]
>  - It is written in GNU coding style, which hurts my eyes and brain."
>
> "The existing GNU runtime is 11,688 lines.3 The new runtime weights in
> at a little over 10% of this size. Note that the size for the new
> library includes test cases and examples, while the GNU version does
> not. In terms of compiled code, the new library is closer to 15% of
> the size of the GNU implementation. The entire library was written by
> one person over two days, which should give some idea of its
> simplicity."
>
> -Jack
>

Yeah, that's not terribly surprising, given what I've seen of GNU projects :-).

People often think things are harder than they need to be due to the
work other people have done.  It seems the most interesting
innovations come from people who usually "don't know any better".

Saw a great mug the other day that said "What would you attempt to do
if you knew you couldn't fail?"

...or something like that.  I should have bought it :-)

Dave

Re: [9fans] OT: New Obj-C runtime

[Pietro Gagliardi]

On Nov 11, 2007, at 12:22 PM, Jack Johnson wrote:

> The entire library was written by
> one person over two days, which should give some idea of its
> simplicity."
>
> -Jack

Wow, I wonder if that guy has a Xeon 8-core for a brain. Writing a  
runtime for a language like Objective-C isn't much of a problem (the  
earliest Objective-C was a preprocessor for C or C++, I'm not sure  
which one) but two days? This guy must have drunk about forty 2-liter  
bottles of coffee.

	@interface Runtime {
		int w;
	}
	- (int)whyDid:(int)my floatie:(float)inTheWater;
	+ (NSString *)theAnswerIsRightInFrontOfYourTerminal;
	@end

	@implementation Runtime

	- (int)whyDid:(int)my floatie:(float)inTheWater
	{
		return 0;
	}

	+ (NSString *)theAnswerIsRightInFrontOfYourTerminal
	{
		return @"It has been so long since I opened Xcode to work with  
Objective-C\n";
	}

	@end