johnezang/JSONKit — pull request #66 by zoul (2011-12-01 09:18:45+00:00)
Title: Package the source code into a static library

I think the sources are easier to use when packaged into an Xcode project with a library target. (My primary target is iOS. If there are people using JSONKit on desktop Macs, it should be trivial to add a framework target to the project.)

One benefit is that you can bundle the tests along with the library, which should make development easier. The tests are currently run whenever the library gets built for the Simulator. (I have added one example test to the project to make it clear how things work.)

Another plus is that you don’t have to monkey around with ARC settings. If you have a project that uses ARC, you can link against the library that uses manual memory management just fine.

And a third advantage – that made me fork your code in the first place – is deployment in projects where the JSONKit code is used more than once. I have two libraries that both bundle the naked JSONKit sources and obviously I get a linker complaining about duplicate symbols. This should be easier to solve with a static library.

There are no drawbacks for people who don’t need the Xcode project, they can grab the naked sources as usually.