khaw@parcplace.com (Mike Khaw) (10/10/90)
ParcPlace Systems announces Objectworks\C++, Release 2 -- William Evans, Product Manager ParcPlace Systems announced Objectworks\C++, Release 2, on August 13th. The focus of this release has been to improve product performance in terms of both memory and speed. New features of Objectworks\C++ enhance the openness and integration of the environment. Finally, Release 2 of Objectworks\C++ incorporates Release 2.1 of the AT&T* C++ Language System, AT&T's recent upgrade for C++. Performance -- Objectworks\C++ performance has increased significantly to better support the development of large applications. Code import and turn-around times have been reduced by 75%. In addition, ParcPlace has tuned the Objectworks\C++ internal object store, permitting four times as much code to be loaded into the environment for the same amount of memory. Because Objectworks\C++ can be used in conjunction with third-party source code control systems, team programming projects are now practical. Open environment -- User selection of environment components extends system customization. Users can select their preferred C preprocessor, C compiler and linker. For example, programmers who prefer the gnu C compiler can use it instead of the default Sun C compiler. As always, developers can use Objectworks\C++ in conjunction with source code control systems and profilers available from third-party vendors. Now, because users can use third-party linkers (e.g., Sun's ld), use of third-party debuggers (e.g., Sun's dbxtool and rdbx) is possible. Integrated environment -- New functionality has been integrated into Objectworks\C++, improving the accuracy of programmers' work and saving them time by letting them stay in the environment longer. Now the Objectworks\C++ debugger allows programmers to step into and debug C code (compiled with the -g options) as well as C++ code. Integration has also been enhanced by providing some features missing from the earlier release. Now, files and directories can be imported directly with the file system browser and the code editor can spawn new source code browsers on functions or classes highlighted by the user. Moreover, shared libraries and optimized executables can be built within the environment, making use of the dependency information maintained inside Objectworks. Many new features that permit the user to customize the environment have been added to Release 2. Users can now specify that: % Processing stop when C++ code is ready for browsing, or after code is compiled, or after code is linked. % Compilation stop after one error or continue as long as possible. % Intermediate files be deleted automatically or not. % Highlighting of files during import be disabled for faster imports or shown for easier tracking of processing. Other features and bug fixes, many of which were identified by our customers, have been incorporated into Release 2. For example: % An "Accept" is no longer required between changes to the same file in an error browser. % Global conditional breakpoint and expression monitoring support has been added. % Errors can be viewed separately from warnings, if desired. Objectworks\C++ will be available for the Sun-3 and SPARCstation platforms in November 1990. The price is $3000 (U.S. and Canada). -------------------- ParcPlace Systems announces Objectkit\C++ -- William Evans, Product Manager ParcPlace Systems announces Objectkit\C++, a collection of reusable C++ class libraries. Objectkit\C++ provides two class libraries from AT&T: the C++ Standard Libary and the C++ Standard Library Extension. These libraries provide a variety of container class definitions as well as classes defined for finite state machine development and fast, special-purpose memory allocation. ParcPlace is the first company to announce the availability to end-users of the AT&T Standard Library Extension -- which was announced by AT&T on August 6th. As a service to our customers, ParcPlace is making available on the same tape two additional class libraries: the National Institutes of Health C++ Library and Stanford's InterViews C++ Library. The NIH C++ Library provides a variety of C++ collection classes. The Stanford InterViews Libraries provide C++ classes for the development of graphical user interfaces to run under X11. While ParcPlace will not support either the NIH and InterViews Libraries, these libraries are very useful as extended examples of C++ code because they will be distributed with full source code. Objectkit\C++ is priced at separately and will be available in November, 1990.