karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) (03/31/91)
I'm interested in Objective-C, but I'm wondering about it. Relative volumes in the C++ and Objective-C groups shows C++ is getting a lot more attention on the net; likewise, there are multiple C++ implementations for DOS, none for O-C that I know of (using DOS as a barometer). The questions are, are there Objective-C vendors other than Stepstone? Are there forthcoming affordable implementations for "standard" architectures, no matter how offensive those architectures may be? Does anyone have a feel for how Stepstone themselves are doing, i.e. will they still be around a year or two, five years, from now? -- -- uunet!sugar!karl Keeping 255 messages and deleting 158. --
rkitts@netcom.COM (Rick Kitts) (04/01/91)
In article <1991Mar30.165230.11364@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: >I'm interested in Objective-C, but I'm wondering about it. Relative volumes >in the C++ and Objective-C groups shows C++ is getting a lot more attention >on the net; likewise, there are multiple C++ implementations for DOS, none >for O-C that I know of (using DOS as a barometer). > >The questions are, are there Objective-C vendors other than Stepstone? >Are there forthcoming affordable implementations for "standard" >architectures, no matter how offensive those architectures may be? Does >anyone have a feel for how Stepstone themselves are doing, i.e. will they >still be around a year or two, five years, from now? > >-- >-- uunet!sugar!karl Keeping 255 messages and deleting 158. >-- Well, how timely this post is. I have a sort-of working version of Objective-C which I would like to sell at some point in the future. I called Stepstone, asking them about licensing agreements for the class library. I don't want to have to re-implement it, and also I don't want to deviate from whatever 'standard' exists now. Anyway, it turns out that to license their library I am required to provide them with my translator for them to QA and approve before I will be able to use their library. The rationale for this is apparently that the Stepstone name will be on the class library and they have had problems with other products they have recommended which resulted in complaints because the product was broken or dysfunctional in some way (I did not get the details). I feel that to be completely ridiculous. My competitor wants to test my program and then tell me that it is OK to sell it. The point of this then is that I am not suprised that their are apparently no non-Stepstone implementations of Objective-C. Having spoken with a few people (buisness types, not techno-geeks such as myself), they have indicated that to enter into such an agreement would be 'folly' and 'dangerous'. I would be curious to know if anyone has elected not to do an Objective-C because of these licensing arrangements. By way of a personal note I have to say that the licensing arrangement for the class library seems to indicate the demise of the Software-IC concept. Hitatchi, for instance, does not require that that they have the right to QA all devices which incorporate some chip of theirs. Neither does Microsoft require that Stepstone submit their translator for QA because Stepstone says that it works with their C compiler. Additionally I have been informed that Objective-C is trademarked. Meaning that I cannot really call my implementation Objective-C. Rather I would have to call it 'Something: Compatable with Objective-C(tm)'. I can live with this, but it seems somewhat silly to me. If anyone has a good idea for what 'Something' should be I would like to hear it. With respect to how long they will be around, I have no way of knowing. I did, however, receive a letter the other day which I was required to fill out and return. It stated that mailing costs where getting to be quite large and that if I wasn't using Objective-C (which I own) actively then please don't return the letter so they could remove me from their customer data base.
cimarron@erewhon.postgres.Berkeley.EDU (Cimarron D. Taylor </>) (04/01/91)
Brad Cox gave a talk here at Berkeley a few weeks ago. I was given the impression that he was more interested in library developement than language development. This is part of his philosophy of software reusability. In particular, when someone asked him why the NeXT machine's do not come with the Stepstone class library, he said that Jobs wasn't interested in it. Jobs apparently thought the language was more important than the library, while Cox believes that the library is more important than the language. It is my belief that there is more money to be made, and more work to saved, through the development and sale of Objective C libraries as opposed to Objective C compilers. The language itself is not really that complicated. Someone with experience selling compiliers (say Borland or Microsoft) should easily be able to sell Turbo-Objective-C or whatever. Also, the IEOR department at berkeley has an experimental port of the Stepstone class library as part of their NeXT port of BLOCS, the Berkeley Library of Objects for Control and Simulation. I am not clear on what kind of agreement was made as to it's distribution. Cimarron Taylor Electronics Research Laboratory / POSTGRES project University of California, Berkeley cimarron@postgres.berkeley.edu
cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox) (04/02/91)
In article <1991Mar30.165230.11364@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: >I'm interested in Objective-C, but I'm wondering about it. Relative volumes >in the C++ and Objective-C groups shows C++ is getting a lot more attention >on the net; likewise, there are multiple C++ implementations for DOS, none >for O-C that I know of (using DOS as a barometer). The high interest in better technologies for fabricating gate- and block-level components as in C++ should not be confused with technologies, such as Smalltalk and Objective-C, for assembling software from libraries of pre-fabricated chip-level components, or Software-ICs. In other words, C++ is not a 'competitor' for Objective-C. It is a better C; a basis for building a better Objective-C. Objective-C is available on nearly all Unix platforms as well as on DOS and OS/2. The only major platform that we do not presently support is Macintosh, and I'm working on that. It is marketed for DOS platforms by Programmers Paradise, by Stepstone, and by Synetics. The latter provides browsers and user interface libraries for Windows 3.0, as opposed to Stepstone's libraries, with are oriented towards X-Windows. NeXT also provides its own user interface environment, NeXTStep, which is based on display postscript. >The questions are, are there Objective-C vendors other than Stepstone? >Are there forthcoming affordable implementations for "standard" >architectures, no matter how offensive those architectures may be? Does >anyone have a feel for how Stepstone themselves are doing, i.e. will they >still be around a year or two, five years, from now? Independent Objective-C implementations have been developed by Stepstone and by NeXT. These implementations are distributed and supported by Stepstone, NeXT, Synetics, FSF, and others, including Programmer's Paradise. Stepstone will be eight years old this spring. During almost all of this time, we've been at the same address; 75 Glen Road; Sandy Hook CT 06482. There are plans that I'm aware of to go anywhere but forward. -- Brad Cox; cox@stepstone.com; CI$ 71230,647; 203 426 1875 The Stepstone Corporation; 75 Glen Road; Sandy Hook CT 06482
pfkeb@ebnextk.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Paul Kunz) (04/02/91)
Just for the record, there's also an implementation of Objective-C for the Amiga. It was done by someone at Calstate-Sacramento who's name escapes me at the moment. Also the NextStep 2.0 version of the Objective-C compiler allows use of C++ within an Objective-C object, perhaps making it an Objective-C++ compiler. So you don't have to choose between Obj-C and C++, one compiler does both. Use the right tool for the right job, sometimes Objective-C is best, sometimes its C++. With the compiler on the NeXT you have your choice. I think this will be released as the GNU 2.0 gcc compiler, but I'm not sure.
brian@babbage.csus.edu (Brian Witt) (04/03/91)
In article <PFKEB.91Apr1203950@ebnextk.SLAC.Stanford.EDU> pfkeb@ebnextk.SLAC.Stanford.EDU (Paul Kunz) writes: > Just for the record, there's also an implementation of Objective-C >for the Amiga. It was done by someone at Calstate-Sacramento who's >name escapes me at the moment. Guess I should reply. Yes, I have that Objective-C (tm) like "translator". I've ported it to AT&T UNIX (tm). I have a nice foundation class set, plus the Collection phylum from Brad Cox's "Object Oriented Programming: an Evolutionary approach" book. It reads version 4 syntax (like the NeXT cubes). The methods are sort-of a combinaion of Stepstone and NeXT varitites. My data structures are more NeXT-like than Stepstone-like. I've been working on the system code-wise since May 1989. (I've had Dr. Cox's book for much longer.) Major item left to do is NeXT's List class. I also wanna port it to MS-DOS. However, if you really need it now, then you can FTP it from babbage.ecs.csus.edu and try it out yourself! There is a window attempt example, and the dependency tree example from Dr. Cox's book. (Hope he doesn't mind me using it :-). (A readme file is attached below) ---------------------------------------------------------------- brian witt | brian@babbage.ecs.csus.edu You are what you click | (and if you click it twice...) Not representing Cal State Sacramento, the ECS dept, or Iraq ---------------------------------------------------------------- ^L ==================================================================== O.C.T. march 1991, bjw Organization: 12.5% by volume I have available a PD pre-processor that accepts version 4 syntax (like NeXT and current Stepstone Objective-C(TM) translators). It runs currently on my Amiga and AT&T UNIX. This package is not complete. I don't archive/activate objects. The class heirarceez (sic) support the reduced classes of NeXT and the Collection phylum of stepstone. Here is a short description of how to FTP the files. I'll try to pull out an overview file, so you know what you are getting yourself into before the big downloading. I can make a zoo file available. ------------------------------- I've uploaded the files for the OCT translator and runtime substrate. This system sits in front of your ordinary C compiler. It should run under AmigaDOS, generic UNIX and MS-DOS. You may have to configure some of the paths, though. The 'cpp' that is included (from DECUS) has been modified to accept #import directives and // comments! The entire system of source is located in oct193.tar.Z file. The Amiga executables are in amibin.zoo file. You may FTP anonymous login to "babbage.ecs.csus.edu" using anonymousity :-)... % list OCT total 2160 -rw-r--r-- 1 brian agnus 60369 Oct 15 16:36 bens.zoo -rw-r--r-- 1 brian agnus 4336 Mar 2 16:56 flist.193 -rw-r--r-- 1 brian agnus 560958 Mar 2 15:46 oct192.tar.Z -rw-r--r-- 1 brian agnus 466283 Mar 2 16:58 oct193.tar.Z -rw-r--r-- 1 brian agnus 1549 Mar 2 15:40 readme.txt "flist.193" is a table of contents for the tar file. Most of the stored files are text except for those in the "lib" and "bin" directories. The files "main16" and "main32" are Amiga executables. Amiga runfiles have 0x000003F2 as their first longword. If you have any troubles getting these files, drop me a line. --- Laws seldom stop politicians! --- brian witt brian@babbage.ecs.csus.edu or seeker!rael!aleks -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- brian witt | brian@babbage.ecs.csus.edu You are what you click | (and if you click it twice...) Not representing Cal State Sacramento, the ECS dept, or Iraq
telfeyan@zip.eecs.umich.edu (Roland Telfeyan) (04/03/91)
In message <CIMARRON.91Apr1004809@erewhon.postgres.Berkeley.EDU> cimarron@erewhon.postgres.Berkeley.EDU (Cimarron D. Taylor </>) writes: > Brad Cox gave a talk here at Berkeley a few weeks ago. I was > given the impression that he was more interested in library > developement than language development. This is part of his > philosophy of software reusability. > > In particular, when someone asked him why the NeXT machine's > do not come with the Stepstone class library, he said that > Jobs wasn't interested in it. Jobs apparently thought the > language was more important than the library, while Cox > believes that the library is more important than the language. That's all rhetoric. The real reason NeXT decided not to include the Stepstone class library is because it was too buggy. Believe me, I've been programming the NeXT since its Sun cross-development system (System 0.3) in 1988, and at that time it *was* included. Our application made extensive use of it. I forget whether it was in 6.0 or 8.0 that the Stepstone class library was removed. I got the impression NeXT got tired of taking bug reports for Stepstone! So NeXT substituted its own foundation library, a smaller set of objects, but useful and reliable. Roland Telfeyan roland@cpat.umich.edu School of Music roland@gomidas.mi.org University of Michigan 1100 Baits, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-2085
salc@aristotle.shearson.com (Sal Cataudella) (04/10/91)
In article <6737@stpstn.UUCP> cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox) writes: In article <1991Mar30.165230.11364@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes: >>I'm interested in Objective-C, but I'm wondering about it. Relative volumes >>in the C++ and Objective-C groups shows C++ is getting a lot more attention >>on the net; likewise, there are multiple C++ implementations for DOS, none >>for O-C that I know of (using DOS as a barometer). > The high interest in better technologies for fabricating gate- and > block-level components as in C++ should not be confused with technologies, > such as Smalltalk and Objective-C, for assembling software from libraries > of pre-fabricated chip-level components, or Software-ICs. Please explain why C++'s implementation of the object oriented paradigm cannot be used to implement software ICs. Please explain why a library of C++ classes (such as NIHCL or Interviews) is not useful in the same way that an objective-c class library would be. >In other words, > C++ is not a 'competitor' for Objective-C. It is a better C; a basis for > building a better Objective-C. If C++ only extended C with function overloading, reference variables, and other *non-objected-oriented* extensions, I could see your point, however C++ has its own way of implementing object-oriented paradigms such as multiple inheritance, and runtime based message selection thru the use of virtual functions. It is this side of C++ that competes head on with objective-c's object-oriented features. If your point is that objective-c's implementation of OO is better than C++'s then argue on that level. But realize that C++ object-oriented features allow you to create software-ics as well. --Sal -- Sal Cataudella Internet: salc@alfred.shearson.com UUCP: ...!uunet!slcpi!alfred!salc (212) 464-3871
bright@nazgul.UUCP (Walter Bright) (04/11/91)
In article <1991Mar31.192347.4953@netcom.COM> rkitts@netcom.COM (Rick Kitts) writes:
/The point of this then is that I am not
/suprised that their are apparently no non-Stepstone implementations of
/Objective-C.
/I would be curious to
/know if anyone has elected not to do an Objective-C because of these
/licensing arrangements.
I did. Back some years ago, I investigated whether to do C++ or Objective-C
as an extension to the Datalight (now Zortech) C compiler. I picked
C++ primarilly because it was an open language, and I would not get sued
for implementing it and calling it C++. At that time, it was a matter of
great debate which one was going to succeed. I strongly feel that AT&T
made the right (!) choice in making it open, and that was the single biggest
factor in the subsequent success of C++.
I suspect that if the Eiffel and Actor people had sold the *source*
to their compiler rather than the binaries, their languages would be much
more successful...
noren@dinl.uucp (Charles Noren) (04/12/91)
In article <SALC.91Apr9145833@aristotle.shearson.com> salc@alfred.shearson.com writes: >Please explain why C++'s implementation of the object oriented paradigm cannot >be used to implement software ICs. Please explain why a library of C++ classes >(such as NIHCL or Interviews) is not useful in the same way that an >objective-c class library would be. I'll horn in on this conversation... I have used Objective-C and am currently using C++. C++ can be used to create software IC's with polymorphic member functions. NIHCL is a good example of such a software IC that corresponds with ICPak 101. However, Objective-C has some significant advantages over C++ that should not be overlooked: 1. Objective-C from Stepstone comes with several mature, vendor supported class libraries. Comparing just the languages is much like getting into arguments about which microprocessor chips are better. What really counts is the development environment your given. With Objective-C you get the vendor supported Foundation classes (similar to C++'s NIHCL), the window class library and the 2-D graphics library. It should also be noted that the Foundation Class library (ICpak 101) comes bundled with Objective-C. For C++ there is NIHCL (National Institutes of Health Class Library), a Smalltalk-like class library. We are using NIHCL in our project, and I think the developers of it did a remarkable job! HOWEVER, no C++ compiler that I know of supports it. Sure, it comes in the Saber C++ distribution (along with other C++ compiler vendors), but it is listed as unsupported software -- i.e. no guarantees that it will even compile under future compiler releases. This does not give me a warm fuzzy feeling. Also, because NIHCL is unsupported, there is no vendor that I can call when I encounter problems. There is a nice book published by the makers of NIHCL, and there is the source of NIHCL, but the NIHCL software is so large that the current documentation needs to be expanded into many volumes before I can begin to feel comfortable with NIHCL. I've also found that not all C++ (Cfront 2.0, 2.1 compatable) compilers will compile NIHCL. The same problems with NIHCL goes with Interviews. With the vendor supported class libraries from Stepstone, you can easily give yourself an extra 6 month++ head start on a project over C++ just because the classes libraries from Objective-C are mature and vendor supported. 2. Langauge features. Objective-C was easier to learn (for me at least) than C++. Objective-C has just a few additions to the C language. With C++ I feel that there is much going behind the scenes that I sometimes lose sleep wondering what I'm missing that will bite me later. Objective-C also has the ability to deal more directly with "meta-class" issues that C++ cannot directly handle. I can ask if a class is derived from another class. This can be done in C++, but only if you build that into each class (like NIHCL). I can also ask if an Objective-C class can respond to a given method or member function and get a yes or no answer. C++ does not do this. Certainly C++ does have a lot of interesting features, such as multiple- inheritence, operator overloading, etc. -- and being a hacker at heart I love to play with these things. C++ also supports stronger type-checking. However, I personally prefer the the ability of getting to "meta-class" things of Objective-C over the enhancements found in C++. 3. Tools. The C++ development environment has made major strides in the past six months! We are using Saber C++ with its integrated development environment (which includes an interpreter, debugger, classs browser) and it IS NICE. However, I like the Stepstone class browser better (somewhere around here I wrote a review about the Stepstone browser). These are some of my thoughts about the Objective-C/C++ religious war. I'm biased towards Objective-C. These opinions reflect that bias, but no one should dismiss using Objective-C. -- Chuck Noren NET: dinl!noren@ncar.ucar.edu US-MAIL: Martin Marietta I&CS, MS XL8058, P.O. Box 1260, Denver, CO 80201-1260 Phone: (303) 977-1646
cox@stpstn.UUCP (Brad Cox) (04/13/91)
In article <SALC.91Apr9145833@aristotle.shearson.com> salc@alfred.shearson.com writes: > >Please explain why C++'s implementation of the object oriented paradigm cannot >be used to implement software ICs. Please explain why a library of C++ classes >(such as NIHCL or Interviews) is not useful in the same way that an >objective-c class library would be. This is discussed in far greater detail than I could ever do here in IEEE Software, Nov 1990, "Planning the Software Industrial Revolution". The difference boils down to the difference between a fabrication technology, such as a silicon fab line and/or C++, and an assembly technology such as a soldering gun and/or Smalltalk/Objective-C. Please send flames to /dev/null. My point is not that assembly technologies are better or worse than fabrication technologies. My point is that it is nonsense to debate that point. Neither makes sense without the other. That is why Objective-C does not prevent access to C. : -- Brad Cox; cox@stepstone.com; CI$ 71230,647; 203 426 1875 The Stepstone Corporation; 75 Glen Road; Sandy Hook CT 06482