Re: Thoughts about the future...

Fri, 20 Sep 2024 06:07:37 -0700

My crystal ball is broken, but I don’t expect Apple to phase out Cocoa. I’m not sure I even expect them to phase out Objective C. There is just too much legacy code out there. That said, I think the latter is more likely than the former. 

I think we should do what makes the most sense regardless of what Apple does. And there, I think Swift and UIKit support would be beneficial regardless. I’m not sure anybody would use GNUStep on macOS unless Apple pulls the plug on Cocoa or ObjC. And if Apple ever did do that, you’d get a lengthy depreciation period which we could use for development time. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 20, 2024, at 04:34, Gregory Casamento <[email protected]> wrote:


Hey guys,

I've been doing some thinking about what Apple's current direction is... before I say anything let me describe the current state of things:

1) They haven't updated macOS significantly (Cocoa specifically) in a few years.  I've been keeping track since Catalina
2) Currently you can run UIKit apps on the mac if your mac uses Apple Silicon.
3) They are aggressively phasing out Intel based macs.

I am wondering if these facts combined mean that they are thinking about deprecating Cocoa within the next few years and going COMPLETELY to using UIKit as the preferred framework for development.   

Another thing that goes along with that is the possibly deprecation of ObjC after that.  White this seems like a disaster, it might be a good thing for US.

Obviously I am not okay with any of the above...  I think:

1) We need to add support for macOS to GNUstep so that, in the case that they DO deprecate Cocoa or ObjC (I hope they DO NOT) then the people who use those have someplace to go
2) We need to have a mobile library (UIKit compatible) to accommodate those who might want to bring their applications to other things outside of the stupidity of Apple's walled garden.
3) We need to add support for Swift (most likely by enabling the ObjC extensions already present in the compiler on Linux)

As I have been unemployed for 6 months I have had copious time to think about all of this.  Thankfully I have something temporary at the moment... but we'll see.

Share your thoughts anyone?

Yours, GC
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