D/Objective-C, extern (Objective-C)

[Walter Bright]

On 6/24/2013 1:45 PM, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> On Mon, 24 Jun 2013 16:36:50 -0400, Suliman <evermind at live.ru> wrote:
>
>> Could anybody explain the practical side of this project? Where it can be
>> helpful?
>
> First, you should quote the bit of the post that you are responding to.  Since
> you responded to my post, I will answer.
>
> Objective C is the main development language used on apple systems (iOS, MacOS
> X, etc).  Currently, D supports MacOS X.  So accessing Apple's OS framework
> (including GUI and other OS frameworks)from D requires either building a bridge
> between the two sides (basically, writing a C "glue layer" since both natively
> support C), or binding directly to Objective C.
>
> Given that Objective C is a superset of C, and D supports C natively, just like
> Objective C, the benefit is huge.  Instead of calling some glue code, I can call
> Objective C objects directly.  Unlike most languages, there would not need to be
> ANY significant glue code here, just a mapping of what to call when you are on
> an Objective C object.  There should be almost no performance hit.

Yup. A big win for Mac developers.