ObjC improvements and ObjC++

[Stan Shebs]

Mark Mitchell wrote:

>On Mon, 2003-07-07 at 18:47, Stan Shebs wrote:
>
>>Now that Apple's developers are happily banging away on Panther
>>and Xcode and GCC 3.3, we have an opportunity to get local work
>>on Objective-C into FSF GCC 3.4, and to get started on Obj-C++
>>as well.
>>
>
>Thanks for presenting the plan!
>
>The overall plan makes sense to me -- but I don't think 3.4 is a
>realistic target.  Stage 1 for GCC 3.4 is already closed, and this is
>inevitably going to be a major change.  I'm also going to be staring at
>the C++ changes very carefully before they go in; the basic "mutually
>oblivious" strategy makes sense, but the devil is in those dang
>details.  (Overload resolution for Objective-C classes?  Template
>deduction?  Etc.)
>
The ObjC++ additions to C++ are surprisingly uncomplicated, mostly
because they primarily modify the C-like subset, and most constructs
relating to C++ classes are explicitly forbidden or left undefined.
(User expectations are low - they mainly just want to be able to run
an existing ObjC object's method using "[]" from within a C++ method.)

Still, the actual patch for ObjC++ in 3.4 doesn't exist yet.
I suspect that when it's done, it will be obvious to everybody
whether it's suitable for 3.4 or not, so I'm only planning to do
the begging and pleading for an exception to the schedule if
the patch falls in between the no-brainer and fingernail-chewing
categories. :-)

Stan