Is it possible to port an iOS app to Windows using GNUstep? (for learning purposes)

Question

I am an Objective-C newbie, who still does not have a Mac, but still I want to practice the language. I heard that in the non-Mac world, GNUstep offers a good alternative to Cocoa, and can be used as a lerning tool for new objective-c developers. My question is, since GNUstep ports a lot of the Cocoa classes, what are the chances of me porting an iOS game + its development framework. I am talking about Canabalt for iOS (https://github.com/ericjohnson/canabalt-ios) which is based on the iOS version of the Flixel framework. I would like to know whether there is even the slightest chance of being able to port & run this game on windows using GNUstep. Remember, that this is entirely for educational purposes, so please, do not look for any practical value in it, besides me getting better with ObjC :)

I guess that it should be technically possible. In general, what are the chances of porting any iOS app to Win using GNUstep?

Answer 1

I think you'd be better off porting a Mac application than an iOS application. While the iOS frameworks (UIKit mostly) are close to those of Mac OS, they are still quite different. Beyond the code differences there are HUGE paradigm shifts between iOS and Mac, in the limited screen space and the lack of a mouse.

GNUstep is close to Cocoa, so you'd be able to port a Mac app with a bit of work, but not so much an iOS app.

Answer 2

If you do get serious about cross-platform objective-C you may want to check out cappuccino and cocotron. They are both nods in this direction. If you don't have a mac that's still going to be a bit tougher though. A used mac mini might go a long way towards happiness here.

Good luck!