Re: Cocotron used for a real-world app

[Stéphane Corthésy]

Obviously, most people arguing here against Cocotron never tried to  
play with it...

I did during some months, as well as I played with GNUstep on OSX some  
years ago.

One of the points no one talked about is the easiness with which you  
can distribute a Windows app built with Cocotron: you zip the .app  
folder, copy and unzip it on another Windows machine and here you are:  
no need to install anything else: no library, no service, no registry  
modification! Maybe I'm wrong, as I haven't worked with GNUstep since  
years, but IIRC for a GNUstep app to work on Windows, you need to  
install several DLLs and their related resource files, and need to  
install some services (for DO, etc.). With Cocotron, your app is self- 
contained, like Mac apps. There is a minor drawback, of course: the  
Cocotron frameworks (Foundation & AppKit) are copied in the .app  
folder, thus making your binary a little bigger than expected, but  
this is really a very minor drawback nowadays. And there's no DO, but  
how many apps do need it?

About development, some people seem concerned about the need to  
compile every time for Windows AND Mac, thus slowing down development.  
It's not true: you build only the target you want to: Windows OR Mac.  
You get two separate .app folders.
For debugging the Windows target, you can even remote-debug it through  
Xcode: you install the Windows app on the Windows computer/VM, then  
start debug it from within Xcode. I admit that in its current state,  
this solution is not yet satisfying, as the custom gdb is still in  
experimental state, but as you would say to defend GNUstep: it's just  
a matter of modifying some C code, just a matter of time ;-)

I agree that GNUstep maturity is better that Cocotron, but the  
Cocotron experience on Windows is much better than what you want to  
agree with; it should help you to make GNUstep better on Windows, not  
only in term of API, but also in term of user experience.

Cheers,

Stéphane