Objective C / GnuStep

MikeeyMon · 11 Feb 2011 at 09:33

Hey guys!

Without the luxury of an Intel Mac, I understand that I can still work with Objective C within a Windows environment.

I have been doing some iPhone dev stuff at college on the iMacs, but want to continue doing some console stuff, and say away from the SDK at home so I can understand the language itself more.

There is a compiler known as Gnustep, which allows you to compile Obj-C files within it, using Notepad ++ I am not able to do this.

What do I have to do to compile the file? Tried finding sources but they are quite difficult to understand. Hope someone can simply it really.

Thanks guys.

Mike.

GravyMonster · 11 Feb 2011 at 09:47

When I looked into iOS development I had a similar issue to yourself in that I didn't have a Mac and wanted to develop on windows.

Other than creating yourself a hackintosh it's very very difficult. The easiest way is to write your apps in C++ as you could then use Visual Studio - this has the added benefit of avoiding the braindead abortion of a language that is obj-c.

However you can't publish your apps or do anything with the store unless you go through a Mac.

MikeeyMon · 11 Feb 2011 at 09:50

Spunkey said:
When I looked into iOS development I had a similar issue to yourself in that I didn't have a Mac and wanted to develop on windows.

Other than creating yourself a hackintosh it's very very difficult. The easiest way is to write your apps in C++ as you could then use Visual Studio - this has the added benefit of avoiding the braindead abortion of a language that is obj-c.

However you can't publish your apps or do anything with the store unless you go through a Mac.

Yeah. I know the guidelines and things when publishing an app, I had made a Hackint0sh but it failed on me a couple of months after - So I deleted the partition.

However, I think it's annoying. I'm too scared to learn C or anything that is a superset of anything. Just want to learn Obj-C as I'm getting the grasp of it at the moment

UncleBensSauce · 11 Feb 2011 at 16:35

Are you guys sure that GCC can't compile objective C on Windows (MinGW?)

Failing that I'm pretty sure you can get the Clang compiler for Windows too.

EDIT: SEE! http://www.mingw.org/wiki/Getting_Started

NickK · 11 Feb 2011 at 19:52

GNU Objective-C will work on windows etc. iPhoneOS/Mac will require Cocoa - the majority isn't part of GNU. The problem is, the most capable Objective-C IDE is Xcode - on mac.

Objective-C is ok, I use it now.. it does things differently (more smalltalk orientated). Think objects in the air and the calls (ie [myObject

Type*)myData]) being actually passing messages then you'll not get confused between C++ and Objective-C.

The fun is that you can't extend Objective-C/C++ classes as C++ or vice versa. The calling system is different. The other way is to write the majority in C++ then write a UI wrapper in Objective-C with Cocoa.

What the GNUstep will not do is educate you in the technologies (ie the notifications, the threading, etc) used in iOS/OSX.

I'm developing mac apps and spent a year developing iOS apps before that.

whitecrook · 11 Feb 2011 at 19:54

Does the distro etoile Help in any way?

MikeeyMon · 12 Feb 2011 at 18:22

NickK said:
GNU Objective-C will work on windows etc. iPhoneOS/Mac will require Cocoa - the majority isn't part of GNU. The problem is, the most capable Objective-C IDE is Xcode - on mac.

Objective-C is ok, I use it now.. it does things differently (more smalltalk orientated). Think objects in the air and the calls (ie [myObjectType*)myData]) being actually passing messages then you'll not get confused between C++ and Objective-C.

The fun is that you can't extend Objective-C/C++ classes as C++ or vice versa. The calling system is different. The other way is to write the majority in C++ then write a UI wrapper in Objective-C with Cocoa.

What the GNUstep will not do is educate you in the technologies (ie the notifications, the threading, etc) used in iOS/OSX.

I'm developing mac apps and spent a year developing iOS apps before that.

Yeah, I can see what you mean there. I just want to learn the language, but I just want a simple compiler to do it with. So it can print out the Console application.

I'll have a look around. Wish I had a Mac.

NickK · 12 Feb 2011 at 23:43

For a simple commandline - just use the distro mentioned in a virtual machine on your windows box or run a VM with linux and GNU installed (with the Objective-C support).

Then just use Foundation and CoreFoundation.