supp@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP (Steve Upp) (11/13/85)
Has anyone on the net had a chance to take a look at Apple's next Mac on Mac development system? From what I have heard this development environment includes a Pascal and C compiler, along with an Assembler, all of which share the same linker. Which means that part of a program can be written in C another part Pascal and still another in Assembler and the whole thing can be linked together. This is the development environment that is supposed to remove the need for Lisa 2/10's. As far as hardware requirments go, it is supposed to require a hard disk on the Macintosh (Apple's 20 Meg) and of course a 512K Mac. If anyone has seen it, read anything about it, or know anything more about it? I would appreciate hearing from you. Maybe Larry from Apple has some information? Larry is your final version of MacAp going to run under this environment or the Lisa Environment? Thanks a lot in advance ------ Steve Upp ...!ihnp4!gargoyle!sphinx!supp
peirce@lll-crg.ARpA (Michael Peirce) (11/14/85)
... At a recent discussion of MacApp I attended there was some talk of the upcoming Macintosh Programmers Workshop (MPW). It sounded nice - suppose to have a mulitasking ability that allows concurrent editing, compiling,debugging, etc. Languages supported will be Pascal, C, and a 68020 assembler (!). All indications are that it will be a VERY nice development system for the Mac. The only problem is that will will probably not see it until sometime next summer - at the earliest :-( -- michael
awd@ut-ngp.UUCP (Andrew W. Donoho) (11/15/85)
The following is a quick summary of what I know about Apple's new development environment on the Mac, for the Mac. The information is mostly from a talk by Dan Cochran head of Apple Tools and Languages. The new system (Macintosh Workshop) will include the following tools: Editor Assembler Linker Debugger Resource Editor Pascal Compiler C Compiler All the tools except for the Pascal and C compilers will be in a single package and the compilers will be available separately. The prices were supposed to be about $295-$495 for the main system and $195-$395 for each compiler. As Dan mentioned, most of the cost of these is in the documentation, rather than the package itself. Editor: The editor will be a completely new program that is supposed to include some kind of regular expression support (possibly using Macintosh special characters in place of the \, etc.). It also will include a scripting capability which allows you to write non-Mac programs (i.e. filters) and run them from the editor, with parameter passing like UNIX. Hopefully the scripting language will be something close to the power of the various UNIX shells. It will have a number of Mac-specific features, such as dialogs defined in the shell language to set shell "environment variables"; this sounds exciting! Assembler: The assembler will also be a new program written from scratch. It will have a more powerful macro facility (Dan compared it to 370 macros?). This will not be directly compatible with MDS assembler or with the Lisa Workshop assembler, but Dan promised that migration tools will be available when the system is released. Linker: The linker will be similar to the Lisa Workshop linker (the best part of the Lisa Workshop, in my opinion). The format for raw object files is being released to language developers now and some network folks should see it soon. Apparently, the linker will not only link in object files, but also take resources from resource work files and put them into the application. Debugger: According to Dan, no one knows exactly what the debugger will be like (or no one did at the time he gave the talk). As an employee of the manufacturer of TMON, I was very interested, but apparently it is still in the works. Resource Editor: This will be the final version of ResEdit. Apparently there is also a new "Resource Definition Language" that will be the definitive way of describing a resource in a text file. No clue on how that fits into things or what it will be like. Pascal Compiler: This is going to be the Lisa Pascal compiler, set up to run in the new Editor environment (command line options!?!). It will include the Object Pascal extensions necessary for MacApp development. The documentation will also be all new. C Compiler: This is going to be the Lisa C compiler (also know as Green Hills C for the Lisa) improved by the test of time and integrated with the rest of the development system. MacApp: Dan said he hopes to make the MacApp "expandable application" the fourth part of this development system, eventually. It will be possible to mix C, Pascal,and Assembly freely in a program. Pascal will obey C parameter passing conventions for specified procedures, C will obey Pascal parameter passing conventions for specified procedures, and the object file format will be the same for both compilers and for the assembler.) Now comes the bad news: The Alpha versions of the Mac Workshop should be ready in December. That means that Beta versions can probably be expected next March or so. I have high hopes for this system, but I am not going to hold my breath waiting for it. Darin Adler (I may work for ICOM Simulations, but my opinions are not those of my employer.)
zrm@gcc-milo.ARPA (Zigurd R. Mednieks) (11/15/85)
A cryptic and unexplained entry on the most recent order-form from Apple is a C compiler for the Lisa Pascal Workbench. The developer is apparently Green Hills, which has a very good reputation, though I have not used their compiler myself. -Zigurd
tim@ISM780B.UUCP (11/15/85)
The C compiler is from Green Hills.
lsr@apple.UUCP (Larry Rosenstein) (11/22/85)
The ultimate version of MacApp will work with the Macintosh based
development system. We will continue to make pre-release versions of
MacApp that work with the Lisa Workshop until most of our clients have
switched to the new development system.
You will be able to write MacApp programs in a combination of Pascal,
C, and assembler, as you can any Macintosh program. We are planning
to add object oriented extensions to C (the same extensions we added
to Pascal), and have already defined some object oriented assembler
macros. (That gives you an idea of the power of the assembler
macros.)
--
Larry Rosenstein
Apple Computer
UUCP: {voder, nsc, ios, mtxinu, dual}!apple!lsr
CSNET: lsr@Apple.CSNET