Re: [Pyobjc-dev] ObjC GC with PyObjC?

[Ronald O. <ron...@ma...>]

On 3 Jun, 2009, at 0:19, Barry Wark wrote:

> Can anyone comment on the current state of PyObjC in relation to the
> Objective-C garbage collector? As @bbum said on Twitter: "... I just
> don't write desktop code w/o GC anymore. Waste of time not to use GC."
> In a PyObjC app that loads Objective-C code via plugin, can we use GC
> in the plugin code?

No. PyObjC application won't use garbage collection. Furthermore, even  
though I have added code to PyObjC that should make PyObjC safe when  
used in a GC environment (such as using CFRetain/CFRelease instead of - 
retain/-release) I haven't tested yet if that actually works as  
designed.   And to be honest, I haven't even checked yet how I ensure  
that GC is turned on automaticly.

Actually getting PyObjC to be to a point where it is safe to use in GC  
environment would be several days work, which would be needed to  
create an environment where the application runs with the ObjC GC  
turned on and then run tests to ensure that PyObjC keeps working.

If I had the time, and funding, I'd much rather work on a port of  
Python that uses the ObjC garbage collector instead of Python's native  
memory management. That would allow for a much improved integration  
between Python and Objective-C, and could remove a number of issues  
where the bridge is not as transparent as I'd like:  KVO could be made  
to work with native Python objects, no need to worry about ObjC-style  
weak references where you have to keep the proxy object alive manually  
(e.g. the outlineview dataprovider protocol).

Sadly enough this would probably require several weeks of full-time  
work, and that's not something I'm able to pull of without funding.

Ronald

>
> Thanks,
> Barry
>
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