ssw@cica.cica.indiana.edu (Steve Wallace) (01/22/90)
What's a good C compiler for the MAC. My past experience is with MS-DOS and Unix. I the near future I'll be responsible for producing MAC applications. I've started reading Inside the MAC; any other suggestions? Thanks, Steven Wallace Workstations Indiana University ssw@lavanix.bacs.indiana.edu ssw@cica.cica.indiana.edu
huang@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (Howard Huang) (01/22/90)
>What's a good C compiler for the MAC. My past experience is with >MS-DOS and Unix. I the near future I'll be responsible for >producing MAC applications. I've started reading Inside the MAC; >any other suggestions? > >Steven Wallace >ssw@lavanix.bacs.indiana.edu >ssw@cica.cica.indiana.edu I've used THINK C for a while and it's really good. It's fast (at least on a Mac II with hard drive; on a Plus with two floppies, well...), has a source level debugger, supports Toolbox calls, comes with sample code, etc. The new version, C 4.0, also includes object oriented programming (not exactly C++) and many large libraries of Mac objects. Version 4.0 is also ANSI-C compatible. It's a great system, and since it's very popular you can find lots of support for it. There's also Apple's Mac Programmer's Workshop version of C which I haven't played with, but it's also popular. I guess those are the two biggest C compilers. Good luck. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Howard C. Huang Internet: huang@husc4.harvard.edu Sophomore Computer Science Major Bitnet: huang@husc4.BITNET Mather House 426, Harvard College UUCP: huang@husc4.UUCP (I think) Cambridge, MA 02138 Apple II: ftp husc6.harvard.edu
bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) (01/22/90)
In article <333@cica.cica.indiana.edu> ssw@cica.cica.indiana.edu (Steve Wallace) writes: >What's a good C compiler for the MAC. My past experience is with >MS-DOS and Unix. I the near future I'll be responsible for >producing MAC applications. I've started reading Inside the MAC; >any other suggestions? After sampling both MPW C and THINK's Lightspeed C, I'd swear by the latter. MPW C is immensely powerful - it's what Apple people themselves use to program their applications. It is text-oriented, and has a command-line interface very similar to Unix. Its primary benefit, in my opinion, is that it is fully endorsed by Apple (of course), and so is *the* standard, and all of Apple's released code is written to compile without modifications on MPW. MPW is only a shell; you can then buy Pascal, C, Fortran, MacApp, or other compilers to run under it. In addition to generating application or resource code with the compiler, you can also create MPW `tools' to perform tasks for you. Lightspeed C is very powerful as well, but in my opinion is much friendlier. The `Makefile' present in Unix and in MPW C is here turned into a `project' file that contains a list of all the source files in your project (not the files themselves) and their object code (thus eliminating the need for .o files). This is all displayed in a project window; double-clicking on one of the filenames listed will open that source file. It has an incredible graphic run-time debugger (much like a Mac-ified version of gdb, the Gnu debugger) and the ability to test-run applications before actually linking together an application file. It can provide a Unix-like environment in which unmodified Unix code can run, in a manner somewhat different from that provided by MPW. There is one majorMajorMAJOR caveat to buying MPW, however: I believe that you must join APDA (the Apple Programmers and Developers Association) in order to purchase it. Its price is steep (wasn't it something like $300?), and the membership fee for APDA is similarly steep. Lightspeed C, on the other hand, can be gotten for $220 at most, and as little as $140 through a school discount (how I got my copy). As a final word of advice, take a peek at all the code in Sumex, and all that comes through comp.sys.mac.binaries. I'd bet that most of it is Lightspeed C code. << Brian >> Disclaimer: I have no relation with either Apple or Symantec. Neither do I have price lists or feature lists in front of me, so if you take this article as etched in stone, you may eventually find that your karma has run over my dogma. -- | Brian S. Kendig \ Macintosh | Engineering, | bskendig | | Computer Engineering |\ Thought | USS Enterprise | @phoenix.Princeton.EDU | Princeton University |_\ Police | -= NCC-1701-D =- | @PUCC.BITNET | | Systems Engineering, NASA Space Station Freedom / General Electric WP3 |
jxf@phobos.cis.ksu.edu (Jerry Frain) (01/22/90)
In article <13155@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) writes: >In article <333@cica.cica.indiana.edu> ssw@cica.cica.indiana.edu (Steve Wallace) writes: [ Steve wants to know what the best C compiler for the Mac is ] [ Brian's description of MPW C deleted ] Never used it, myself. [ Brian's description of THINK C deleted ] I won't echo Brian's review of THINK C, but I use THINK C 4.0, and think very highly of it. It is a very good, "Mac-ish," C program development environment. >There is one majorMajorMAJOR caveat to buying MPW, however: I believe >that you must join APDA (the Apple Programmers and Developers >Association) in order to purchase it. Its price is steep (wasn't it >something like $300?), and the membership fee for APDA is similarly >steep. The membership fee for APDA is $20. > Lightspeed C, on the other hand, can be gotten for $220 at >most, and as little as $140 through a school discount (how I got my >copy). I purchased THINK C 4.0 from MacConnection in last month for $149. --Jerry [ very satisfied THINK C 4.0 user ] -- Jerry Frain -- Professional Student Kansas State University Internet: jxf@phobos.cis.ksu.edu Dept of Computing & Information Sciences BITNET: MUSTANG@KSUVM Manhattan, Kansas UUCP: ...!{rutgers|textbell}!ksuvax1!phobos.cis.ksu.edu!jxf