Is Objective-C used without Cocoa?

Question

Cocoa seems to seem like the main platform for Objective-C. GCC (which uses Xcode) supports Objective-C, so it must be available on a wide range of platforms.

Are there any notable cross-platform projects that use Objective-C but not Cocoa (or its open source GNUtep cousin)? Is it really used outside the Apple ecosystem?

Answer 1

Objective-C has also been popular in the scientific and financial services communities. Currently, there are many applications based on Objective-C deployed in the banking sector, mainly on the front of trade analysis. A friend works on an almost millionth line of Objective-C code based on analysis and a trading mechanism for which they wrote their own class hierarchy from scratch.

At one point, one of the most popular Linux window managers was written in Objective-C. This was a few years ago and may not be so anymore.

The LLVM compiler also compiles Objective-C, including full support for Blocks. It is also quite portable.

There is also a David Stes Portable Object Compiler . It compiles Objective-C into C and uses a class hierarchy that is based directly on the original ICPak class hierarchy with StepStone.

Answer 2

It seems that you are asking if Objective-C is used without Cocoa, or GNUstep, or Cocotron, or any API like them.

The answer is basically no. Without an API like Cocoa (or GNUstep, etc.), Objective-C is not very useful. For example, without NSObject, retain and release would not even exist. A ton of very important functions are built into these APIs, so it is somewhat pointless to use Obj-C without one of them.

Answer 3

Oh sure. The one that I can think of from my head is Kokotron. Efforts to port AppKit to Windows.

http://www.cocotron.org/

In addition, Objective-C can be used on any platform gcc will run on. You will not have the wealth of frameworks available in Cocoa on OS X or iPhone, although, as you mentioned, GNUStep makes a pretty good effort.