Re: GC-optional mode: does anyone care?

[David Chisnall]

On 27 May 2011, at 20:44, Riccardo Mottola wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> from what I gather, supporting the mixed model is useful only for binary 
> packages, which are rarer in the unix world?

Pretty much.  The Apple docs say:

> In general, you should not try to design your application to be dual-mode 
> (that is, to support both garbage collection and reference-counted 
> environments). The exception is if you are developing frameworks and you 
> expect clients to operate in either mode.

They should qualify this by saying that you are not distributing the source for 
these frameworks - there's no problem at all with a framework being compiled 

> I suppose that most users (should) install using the distribution packages. 
> Given that if even one application needs GC, the packager will build gnustep 
> with GC support, all other apps which don't use GC need to live with it.
> 
> Or am I getting things wrong?

You're mostly right, but you're assuming that one framework means one package.  
There's nothing stopping a distribution having two packages for one framework, 
one compiled with -fobjc-gc-only and one compiled without.  

David

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