[Pyobjc-dev] memory management.

[Jonathan L. <pan...@sk...>]

Guys,

I have been watching the discussion on retain/release/autorelease 
semantics for a few days and I have put some thought into things.  
After a lot of thought, I would like to sincerely urge you to make an 
attempt at abstracting out any and all retain/release/autorelease 
responsibilities for the programmer.  I understand the argument that it 
isn't very "Cocoa-like", but I feel that I have a compelling argument 
here.

First, I believe that you alienate most python programmers by enforcing 
memory management on them.  Python programmers use python *because* 
they don't have to worry about this kind of thing.  Its not that they 
don't know how or are afraid of it, they just don't want to touch it.  
If you force people into it, they will likely end up using wxPython or 
something like REALBasic.

Secondly, to counter the "Cocoa-like" argument, placing memory 
management functionality into a python product is simply not 
"Python-like".  Sure, it will feel more like developing with Cocoa and 
Objective-C, but people are going to use the Python bridge because they 
don't want to work with Objective-C when they don't have to.  You have 
to make a choice here... if PyObjC is for Cocoa developers who don't 
know python, then certainly you should try and be "Cocoa-like."  But if 
PyObjC is for *python programmers* (which I have a feeling it is), then 
it should strive to be Python like... meaning no retain/release at all!

My last point is that I believe this project is a unique opportunity to 
take the already simple and powerful Cocoa development frameworks and 
make them even more elegant.  Python has a powerful ability to help 
developers implement or prototype things QUICKLY.  Memory management 
through old-style reference counting stands directly opposite to this 
power.  If you lose this, why use Python at all?  You might as well 
just use Objective-C (it only takes a few minutes to learn) and is 
faster than python.

When I switched to Mac OS X a few months ago, I had been using Java 
Swing, wxPython, and GNOME's Python bindings to build GUI applications. 
  On OS X, I really wanted to be able to leverage the native widgets and 
native frameworks to their fullest potential using a language that I 
was comfortable with.  I tried out the Java bridge and was terribly 
disappointed with speed, documentation, and general instability of the 
bridge.  Then I bit the bullet and learned Objective-C.  I was 
impressed overall, but really felt that the memory management system 
was pathetically outdated and cumbersome.  Its certainly better than C, 
but definitely not as simple as my previous solutions.  When this 
project came along I was extremely excited about the possibilities that 
it offered.  Please consider at least making an automated system an 
OPTION.  I know its hard, but I think that in the long run it will be 
worth it.  A system like Cocoa without manual memory management using a 
language like Python and Mac OS X's developer tools is such a powerful 
concept and could truly be the "killer app" of development on Mac OS X.

Just some food for thought...

  - Jonathan