syap@ur-tut (James Fitzwilliam) (06/19/88)
Hi! I am planning the purchase of a programming environment for my Plus.
At present I am very strongly inclined to purchase Lightspeed C, partly
because many of the better shareware programs I've come across were done
in it; also, all my CompSci friends say I'd love working in C.
My System
---------
Mac Plus, 800K ext. drive, 20M Hard Disk, Imagewriter II, 2400baud modem.
Me
--
I speak BASIC, Pascal, and Unix (csh), and have quite a bit of Macintosh
experience. At present I'm most interested in being able to turn my
ideas for Mac applications into working models for my own use, but I
wouldn't be averse to trying the shareware route in the future, assuming
I get that good.
Questions
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Would you recommend Lightspeed C? Something else? Pros and Cons...
What comes with the package?
How helpful is the documentation re the Mac, as opposed to C itself?
For ex., does it deal with how to create APPLs, DAs, INITs, CDEVs...?
What about information such as the format of a MacPaint file header,
or how to deal with MultiFinder, compatibility issues, etc.?
Can I get away with not having Inside Macintosh -- for now?
Are the common elements of the Mac interface -- buttons, dialogs,
windows, menus etc. -- supported in some manner of standard library?
What are the "CAPPs for Lightspeed C" sold by MacConnection?
How necessary/valuable are they?
I appreciate any advice or comments you might have. Thanks in advance.
James
PS: sorry if this has been done to death; I haven't been reading programming
related articles before now. Feel free to e-mail if so.
domain: syap@tut.cc.rochester.edu
path: rochester!ur-tut!syap "Piano is my forte" (-:
GEnie: FITZWILLIAM
============================================================================singer@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) (06/19/88)
In article <2175@ur-tut.UUCP> syap@ur-tut (James Fitzwilliam) writes: >Would you recommend Lightspeed C? Something else? Pros and Cons... Speaking as an independent programmer (and not as an employee of THINK Technologies, the company that makes LightspeedC), I prefer LightspeedC simply because it's faster than any other C compiler on the Mac, and the environment is the cleanest one I've dealt with. There are other compilers (to wit, MPW)) that produce better code, but the disadvantages outweigh the benefits gained by using LightspeedC. >What comes with the package? With version 2.15, you get LightspeedC,Unix-compatible libraries (math, unix routines, stdio, strings, storage, and so on), ResEdit, RMaker, a converter for Consulair/MDS .Rel files, Compare, and, uh, um, I think that's it. >How helpful is the documentation re the Mac, as opposed to C itself? > For ex., does it deal with how to create APPLs, DAs, INITs, CDEVs...? No. The manual tells you how to use LightspeedC, and how LightspeedC differs from other C implementations on the Mac, and that's it. There is a sample editor program, but that's the extent of the Mac stuff. > What about information such as the format of a MacPaint file header, > or how to deal with MultiFinder, compatibility issues, etc.? All this is supplied elsewhere, in Macintosh Technical Notes, produced by Apple. > Can I get away with not having Inside Macintosh -- for now? No. Not no way not no how. >Are the common elements of the Mac interface -- buttons, dialogs, > windows, menus etc. -- supported in some manner of standard library? No, but there are companies (Invention Software in Ann Arbor, MI) is a good one) that make such things. >What are the "CAPPs for Lightspeed C" sold by MacConnection? Capps is an editor-creation toolkit. (I know, it needs a name change, and will get one with the next rev.) The routines in Capps supplant the TE routines built into the Mac ROM, providing extended functionality such as support for text larger than 32K, and much greater overall performance. Also included in Capps are libraries for pattern-matched searching and HFS directory searching, and sample programs that illustrate all this. -Rich Rich Siegel THINK Technologies Rich Siegel Quality Assurance Technician THINK Technologies Division, Symantec Corp. Internet: singer@endor.harvard.edu UUCP: ..harvard!endor!singer Phone: (617) 275-4800 x305