Re: Release schedule

[Richard Frith-Macdonald]

On Thursday, April 3, 2003, at 07:05  pm, Chris B. Vetter wrote:

> On Thu, 3 Apr 2003 11:38:01 +0200
> Markus Hitter <address@hidden> wrote:
> [...]
> > Until now I've seen only few cases where GNUstep additions add real
> > value. A lot of this stuff seems to be the result of preferred coding
> [...]
>
> Some of them are a real, pardon my French, pain in the arse.
>
> Especially those that get included automatically for no obvious reason,
> or are defined subclasses of a class you need but clash with your own
> stuff.
>
> A very (not so) good example is NSSocketPort, defined in NSPort (why
> doesn't it use seperate header?????), that defines -socket -- returning
> an NSSocketNativeHandle (ie. an int)

A few points ...
1. I don't think NSSocketPort should be there as it's 
incomplete/not-working
Perhaps I'll remove it (I didn't add it) as I see no particular point 
in having
a non-working class there.
2. As to why it doesn't use a separate header ... for MacOS-X 
compatibility
as there is no particular reason to put it in a separate header when 
MacOS-X
puts it in NSPort.h
3. Clashing with your own code ...
If you just have a method '-socket' with a different return type,
I agree that is an inconvenience and means you need to cast id's to the
correct type.
On the other hand, if you have your own NSSocketPort I have to say 
that's
your fault ... the class name uses the 'NS' prefix - which you are not 
supposed
to use. That being said, I can't find the place in the spec where it 
says you
shouldn't use the NS prefix yourself, so I guess there is an excuse :-)

> Oh, yes, yes yes, you could use STRICT_OPENSTEP for including NSPort.h
> -- alas STRICT_OPENSTEP DOESN'T F*CKING WORK.

Please submit a bug report (or better, supply a patch to fix it) saying 
how/why
and under what circumstances it doesn't work for you then.

> *SIGH*
>
> Looks to me like there are additions, extensions and "stuff" that isn't
> even tested whether it will work.
>
> And don't give me that "works here" ... it doesn't work here, and 
> that's
> what matters to me (and my boss).

Well it's ok to take that sort of attitude if you want, but it doesn't 
help ...
If there are bugs that effect you but aren't reproducible by other 
people
then your choices are to -
1. give up or
2. pay someone to help or
3. help fix things yourself.
The beauty of free software projects is that you *have* that third 
option,
and if you fix things and contribute the fixes back, you also gain the
satisfaction of having done something for the good of others.