Focus on the Runtime question first (was Re: GNUstep and MacOS X Port Effort

[Paul E Johnson]

<snip>
I've learned a lot from this thread and I'm getting some relatively 
specific ideas about what needs to be done for all Swarm, not just for 
Mac users. All would gain.

It seems to me our biggest priority should be to cut out the Swarm 
libobjc, so we run against the native GNUruntime/libobj that comes with 
gcc.

Hm.  Either that, or copy the upgraded runtime files from the 
gcc-20020909 distribution. The file class.c has a pretty long discussion 
of how they got their speedup of class method lookup and I think that 
Swarm programs won't benefit from that unless we either use their 
libobjc or copy their class.c.  Scott C mentioned that Swarm could keep 
its own runtime last week, but unfortunately I don't know how we would 
make files that use the Swarm runtime coexist with the gnustep runtime 
from GNU.  GNUstep does use the GNU runtime, I think.

Maybe it is easier just to copy their updated files and make whatever 
changes Marcus made for the 64 bit systems.

If we want to remove libobjc altogether, Marcus gave the steps, which 
entail 1) finding the "improvements" he made and sending them back to 
gcc, 2) finding the functionality he inserted (mframe, what else?)  and 
putting it somewhere else, and 3) doing whatever Makefile magic is 
necessary with the rest of the Swarm library so that they don't build 
libobjc anymore.

That would be the kind of work I would probably screw up a lot before 
getting it right, and so I'm not keen to start out.  But Alessandro said 
he knew some actual programmers, and so maybe they could help.
--
Paul E. Johnson                       email: address@hidden
Dept. of Political Science            http://lark.cc.ku.edu/~pauljohn
1541 Lilac Lane, Rm 504
University of Kansas                  Office: (785) 864-9086
Lawrence, Kansas 66044-3177           FAX: (785) 864-5700


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