From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 17 18:12:24 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EC0BE37B401 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 2003 18:12:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from lifesupport.shutdown.com (dsl092-048-059.sfo2.dsl.speakeasy.net [66.92.48.59]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 51A3443FB1 for ; Thu, 17 Jul 2003 18:12:24 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from llewelly@lifesupport.shutdown.com) Received: (from llewelly@localhost) by lifesupport.shutdown.com (8.11.2/8.11.2) id h6I182I03661; Thu, 17 Jul 2003 18:08:02 -0700 (PDT) To: "Lin Jianfong" References: From: LLeweLLyn Reese Date: 17 Jul 2003 18:08:01 -0700 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Lines: 29 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) Emacs/20.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: A couple of definitions X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 01:12:25 -0000 "Lin Jianfong" writes: > As far as I know, objective C is sort of ancestor to C++, Not an ancestor. Objective C and C++ were seperately developed, in different parts of the C community, and so far as I know there was little or no communication or cross-fertilization. (Well, there is a creature called 'Objective-C++', but I don't know much about that, though I get the impression it is little used.) Objective-C's object model is dynamicly typed, strongly based on smalltalk ideas. C++'s object model is staticly typed, strongly based on Simula-67 ideas. They come from different branches of the OO tree. > an object > oriented C, and I doubt if anyone is still using it nowadays. [snip] It was / is much loved by the NeXT community, and it did languish for some years while NeXT did. MacOS X revived it, and the GNUStep people never stopped using it. So it isn't likely to vanish anytime soon. However I doubt it will ever be as widespread as C++, much less C. If you wish to use the GNUStep desktop framework, which as far as I understand (I haven't played with it much under freebsd) works great in freebsd, you'll need Objective-C. I can't think of anything else that needs it, however.