Fwd: [Pyobjc-dev] Why syntax?

[Bill B. <bb...@co...>]

Seems to be held in moderation-- wanted to make sure it was posted [will 
reply later] because I forgot the bloody admin passwrod.

b.bum

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Andrew Zeldis <ae...@ma...>
> Date: Thu Apr 12, 2001  06:04:23 PM US/Eastern
> To: Bill Bumgarner <bb...@co...>
> Cc: pyo...@li...
> Subject: Re: [Pyobjc-dev] Why syntax?
>
>
>
> On Thursday, April 12, 2001, at 05:11 PM, Bill Bumgarner wrote:
>
>> One key difference between Java and ObjC is that ObjC doesn't require 
>> us to know the method signatures-- the names-- prior to actually 
>> invoking the method.  We can
>
> I've been under the impression that all available selectors were 
> somehow compiled or registered with the ObjC runtime before anything 
> else happened.  Is it possible to define new selectors during runtime, 
> post-load?  If so, I can see how the dynamicicity (?) of ObjC would 
> muck this up, but as I understand it all possible selectors will be 
> available for discovery if the object is available.
>
>> A secondary problem is that key/value arguments are not ordered.   
>> I.e. Ignoring for a moment that "win.init(contentRect=frame, 
>> styleMask=15, backing=2, defer=0)" drops the "With", the order with 
>> which the key/value arguments are passed to the init() function cannot 
>> be known.   As such, it makes reconstructing the method really hard;  
>> nearly impossible.
>
> Oh yes, I assumed that using "with" in the method name was a standard, 
> and so could be dropped - like getBlah and setBlah in jython...  Is 
> that true?
>
> Also, I didn't realize ObjC methods were ordered...  Does this mean 
> then that it's wrong to think of them as key/value or named parameters, 
> but as a single method name where variables are "interpolated"?
>
> Is there a possibility of more than one selector containing the same 
> "keys" in a different order?
>
>> This was actually discussed at great length in '96 or '97 when Lele, 
>> myself and others were actively working on the ObjC module.  We 
>> determined then that the amount of work did not justify the small 
>> reward.
>
> Well, probably because I'm syntax mad, but this doesn't seem like an 
> especially small reward.  Especially if you're trying to evangelize 
> it.  Right now PyObjC looks very little like Python, *or* ObjC; if the 
> thing looked more like python we'd basically have a native gui 
> framework finished and *polished*.
>
> It doesn't look like the ObjC runtime provides anything more than 
> NSSelectorFromString, is that  right?  So basically it'd have to run 
> through all the permutations of the parameter names, testing each one, 
> until it matched.  Maybe a little slow, and annoying, but it doesn't 
> seem that hard...?
>
> Anyway, now that it's building with distutils (thanks!) I think I'll 
> attempt it - just please don't say I told you so!
>
> Are the NSFunctions  (like NSSelectorFromString) made available to 
> Python somewhere?