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Metrowerks Putting Linux on Hold
yamla writes "Metrowerks, developer of the CodeWarrior development tools, has decided to put their professional Linux tools on hold. Since being bought out by Motorola, they've changed product emphasis and although their Linux guy in R&D wants to go ahead, management has put the product on indefinite hold. I want to develop using CodeWarrior 5 for Linux but apparently, this program may now never see the light of day. " I've talked with some folks over at Metrowerks and have confirmed this - from what they've said, the earliest it would be out is next Fall. Click below to read their account - and remember that it's better to sign the various petitions around than it is to flame people.
We currently have our plans for the Professional Linux on hold. Our head Linux guy in R&D wants to develop the product, but management has the project on hold. We have had some product changes since Motorola bought us out. You can keep checking the website for any news on the product, but the earliest it could possibly be release would be next Fall.
Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you.
Metrowerks
Emacs and an xterm is all you need.
Linux has matured enough now, that we need'nt worry about petitions anymore. If a company wants to utterly sink itself by not marketting their products at key times, let them sink, I say.
I'm not going to be holding any company's hand anymore. You either keep up with the pack, or die. Furthermore, I'm not very impressed with Codewarrior's interface, I've used several versions of Codewarrior. Their Codewarrior for the Pilot product was enough to keep me away from the pilot until I found GCC.
It is my opinion that Metrowerks' glory days are over. Me? I'll stick with my IDE:
- 1 xterm with vi
- 1 xterm to compile with gcc
- 1 xterm to test the app in
Total cost: $0
If companies don't want to support Linux, then it's their own limbs they're cutting off
philth, the UNIX/UNIX-like OS bigot
What's the point? Well, I think the community is better off without such a hack. Dont get me wrong, CW is a superior product,...on the Mac. The Windows version is cute, but it fails to integrate with the Windows environment, because of its Mac bias. The same goes for the Linux version.
What benefits the KDE/GNOME developer community is the availability of IDEs that integrate well with their respective GUI environment and the platform that they run on. Development tools should cater to their target platform. Fortunately more and more of these tools are starting to appear.
I'm in total agreement here. I use a mac on a regular basis, and, frankly, I use the mouse more on windows, since on the mac, the keyboard shortcuts stay fairly consistant from application to application. I can think of at least a dozen keyboard shortcuts that, lack of on any mac application would spell doom...
Frankly, a bit more standardization would be nice in Linux, at least in what applications default behavior is...
I've been a "C" programmer for over 20 years, and I still get a kick out of writing software that actually works well. However, if I invent a good piece of software, I think I should get paid for the idea's realization, which is in the software that one uses. It's no different than inventing a better corkscrew, I invented it, I produced it, I should get paid for the product. Now if the price is too high then, the laws of supply and demand naturally occur, unless monopolilistic practices are used. Bottom line: I work, I need to live and in order to do that I need to receive money.
So Motorola looks for a certain profit margin, and if that profit margin isn't there, then either raise prices and/or lower costs, or kill the product. I'm sure the analysis of CodeWarrior and it's market in Linux revealed they couldn't raise prices, because this "idea" of "free" software rules the Linux application market, because Linux is "free". So the only alternative is to kill the product.
Software should be of high quality and reasonable cost, not free. If you want to blame anyone, then blame Metrowerks for going public in the first place and then allowing themselves to get purchased by Motorola. (I will admit $95 million was cheap)
I think the Linux community, of which I count myself, is doing a great diservice by perpetuating the notion that a vendor must give away their product for free, if it runs on Linux. While we in the Linux community know this is not true, the average software vendor doesn't really know that. In part to FUD by Microsoft, but also in part that the general perception that Linux folks are real weirdos. Albeit, I'm fairly strange, I try to maintain a fair amount of decorum around the non-initiated. And I'm one of the teeming masses of nobodies in the world, so I count for very little anyaway, so be cool and be balanced, and cut back on the caffiene.
Cy ;->
QNX announced that they were moving from the WATCOM compiler to Metrowerks, and simultaneously announced support for multiple processors for QNX (which has always been an x86-only processor). A few weeks later, they had to retract all their announcements, apparently because Metrowerks had decided instead to support RedHat Linux, and not waste their time on QNX. A win for Linux, but in my book, decidely bad form. I'm sure it made the QNX folks' blood boil, as well. QNX ended up having to 'make up' to the WATCOM folks, who were teed off at the QNX announcement in the first place. What a mess.
And, as you can see, the fickle Metrowerks management is at it again, pulling the rug out from under the Linux crowd, and chasing after another platform.
And Motorola plays into this in even stranger ways. They have just partnered with the Lynx OS fellows, to be the reference platform for Lynx' BlueCat embedded Linux release, which is, as far as I can tell is still just a gleam in the Lynx folks' eyes. Even though they claim to be committed to open source and all that jazz, they plan on keeping all the add-on goodies (like backplane TCP/IP) to themselves, reasoning that they can make money off of the license fees. Oh woe, that any company thinks that they can bundle like that and get away with it. Another fantasy is that Lynx doesn't believe that sales of BlueCat will kill their cash cow, the Lynx RTOS, which is closed-source and pricey. It won't take two nickels to rub together for someone to decide to add the RT-Linux patches into the BlueCat sources, and thus do away with any dependency on Lynx OS as a real-time platform (along with the binary license fees).
On the plus side, they have decided to put a strong support and consulting organization in place for BlueCat that mirrors the one they have for Lynx (24x7 worldwide hand holding and all that jazz), so hopefully, they will figure out that they need to make their bucks there, and quite experimenting with what they can get away with, with GPL'ed software.
Now, here is the Motorola/Metrowerks/ Lynx link -- Lynx has announced that they intend to ship a sexy, cross-platform IDE (no screenshots yet) that runs on RedHat and targets BlueCat, and later, Lynx OS.
Hmm. You don't suppose that that's what's got Metrowerks bouncing from one platform to another like a moth around a lightbulb, do you? Hmmm?
Well..
If you would use your "refresh" button on your browser and read some other posts, you would've get your answer..
Metroworks pulled this trick before, and it wasn't related (last time) to Linux OS at all. They got a shit management there. period.
Hetz (Heunique)
I mean, if you like Code Warrior, then you're obviously unhappy that they've dropped linux support. But it certainly shouldn't destroy your project!
My Freakin Blog
This is typical, what I find really sad when I read this is that some people actually base stuff on proprietary software over which they have no control. This is so typical, vendors of proprietary software just dont care about their users, they care about their profit margin. That's the way it is. If I want something I can rely on, only Free Software can provide me the assurance that the software I want to use will not disapear next week. This is a clear case of a corporate takeover where the new owner has new plans and just could not give a damn of the few clients on a platform that they have no chance of dominating because their offering is clearly inferior to what the Free Software Community can offer. Using emacs, vi, CodeCrusader and gcc, and maybe stuff like Glade and KDevelop offers the same features that CodeWarrior can offer while not having the inherent risk associated with proprietary software. We should not be sad because they have abandonned us, if I was heading this company, I would probably have done the same thing. But we should take it has an example of how companies work and the fact that they can not be trusted.
Only Free Software can garantee Freedom.
Besides Open Source tools like Glade and JX Builder, Code Fusion (and other commercial tools like the Motif based BX pro) make for some very serious competition for Code Warrior. Maybe the abundance of such tools (and the availability of excellent Open Source ones) killed Codewarrior?
So instead of worrying too much about this (admittedly heavy) loss, look forward to new tools, and try one of the other ones!
--
Oh please, you're just another elitest zealot, I suppose that you also think that every linux user got the Quake 3 Linux warez instead of the legit version as well, since we "don't pay for software".
Codewarrior is one of the most successful pieces of software for linux so if you think that 'none of us were going to plonk down cash for it' then you are either ill-informed or un-informed.
-[ World domination - rains.net ]-
You might consider yourself better off merely because you have choices that you don't want to exercise anyway, however given than Metrowerks are actually investing their time and money in this, they need to also be "better off".
If they've decided that their strategy lies in another direction, it will be for sound reasons. An attempt by the linux community to sway them by any other means than a business case is unacceptable.
Why would Linux/UNIX people want to use a grahical IDE? Isn't the *nix philosophy: "Many small tools that do one thing well"?
Oh right, I should use Emacs then.
Why do I smell Bill Walker in this?
(Bill Walker is the evil son of Satan at Motorola who has decreed that all desktop machines containing PowerPC processors (manufactured by Motorola), be eliminated and replaced with Dell machines, runnin NT, of course.)
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Moto bought Metroworks so they could fuck with Apple:
."
"Gee, Steve, I'm really sorry to hear you're not happy with the latest batch of PPC chips - you wouldn't be planning on making any public statements to that effect would you? I mean, you've got a really nice development environment here, "Code Warrior". It'd be a REAL shame if anything happened to it. .
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
OIC! (x10^23)
Score: 5, Informative!
I, being a closet Macophile, didn't even realize this. I thought Metrowerks was Apple's premier development tool for OS X. Serves me right for reading press releases.
This explains a lot.
And I'm SURE it wasn't "Apple" per se who dissed Metrowerks. I'm betting it was the dreaded NeXT Nazis within Apple. Who themselves got dissed when Objective-C was dropped as the primary language for Yellow Box in favor of (yeeuch!) Java. After that maneuver, I thought that the NeXT faction had been silenced.
I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said "Information wants to be free".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Not true... actually, exactly the opposite. Most
divisions are phasing out Macintosh support in favor of a common platform that is basically a Dell with all Microsoft software.
With all the recent publicity about Linux moving onto everything from the palm-top to the mainframe, many corporate execs and managers will likely be edgy about buying anything from Metrowerks. It's not good to buy from companies you can't rely on for support, and companies that are perceived as dead in the water are perceived as unreliable.
On the flip-side, it doesn't do Linux any good, either. Fewer products means less shelf-space, means less mind-share. Again, in the minds of those corporate execs, no mindshare, no use. Linux has to be seen to be believed, all too literally. If theatres are about bums on seats, then software is about seats on shelves.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
It is this kind of story that makes me glad I finally gave in and learned to use Emacs.
Honestly, aren't all of you tired of re-learning to use your IDEs every time that some guy in Sales decides that it's time for a new version. I don't even have to change editors when I switch languages. Python, Java, C, C++, Tcl, Scheme, Pascal, you name it Emacs will eat it for breakfast. In fact, it probably has a mode for whatever type of text editting that you are interested in.
The same is true (of course) for vi.
The fact of the matter is that there is nothing wrong with the free tools that are available for Linux, and once you learn to use them you will probably wonder what in the heck you were doing paying for your old tools every six months.
There are almost certainly areas where it makes sense to purchase commercial software for Linux, but development tools really isn't one of these areas.
I really liked the interface to Codewarrior. I liked its advanced support for the standard C++ libraries. Their browser was very useful.
I still use it with Windows; however the linux port did not interest me for long because the browser was broken; the advanced C++ library was gone, and because it proved to be a real hassle to import code. It struck me as a GUI welded onto gcc-- which it was.
Many open source projects support configure/autoconf/autoheader/automake. I was unable to use these common tools with CW. I would have liked a system that translated between Codewarrior projects and these more common cross platform formats.
Metrowerks has already been working on MacOS X compilers. They will be there first (other than Apple with GNU based compilers).
An infinitely more likely scenario is that Motorola who now owns Metrowerks didn't see any financial incentive to pursuing a Linux IDE. Motorola bought Metrowerks mostly because of their compilers for the embedded market, something that Motorola dominates. A secondary reason would be their PowerPC support but the MacOS market is small compared to their embedded market. The number of Linux users who would actually purchase the IDE is probably insignificant compared to even the MacOS market.
I did buy an IDE for work for the Linux version of the product I work on. CodeWarrior didn't make the cut- CodeFusion did. CodeWarrior for Red Hat wasn't on the shelves when I went to buy at CompUSA- CodeFusion was (BTW- it's sold out twice at the local store already!).
To be sure, I use Code Crusader for my home projects- it's free and gives me all I need.
I don't blame them for backing down- but I'm awfully glad that CompUSA didn't have the Red Hat version of CodeWarrior. I have problems with vendors that won't pursue the next version on my selected platform. It makes me want to buy their stuff a lot less.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
The compiler is open sourced (gcc), but the IDE is most definitely not . I wonder if Red Hat's going to eventually open it...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
"There are hundreds of web browsers, too, but most of them suck. CodeWarrior is robust, fast, and mature, and it has a large user base already."
:-)
Only in the Mac community and to a lesser extent in the Windows community. And, there is one free alternative and one no-so-free alternative that stand out as being usable and as good as (or better than- depending on how you view it...) CodeWarrior.
Code Crusader is the freebie and is a best of breed IDE and is what I've been using for some of my work projects and all of my at home projects. It's worth a look-see.
CodeFusion, from Red Hat, is the other one. It's a little clumsy to use at first, but once you get the hang of it, it's also a great alternative to CodeWarrior. (It's what we're using for our stuff at work now- we're needing cross-platform...
"However, I think that having CodeWarrior available for Linux would help entice developers coming from the Windows/Mac world."
Actually, we've got a lot there with the other two- if MetroWerks/Motorola aren't interested in us, it's their loss.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Absoft makes MacOS, Linux x86/PPC, NT and Win32 compilers. Mostly Fortran, but there's C/C++ in there. Just a thought.
-- haaz.
I would buy CodeWarrier for the Palm Pilot if it ran under Linux, but apparently the only version that is targetted at the PDA runs under Windows. A pity.
I can't think why it would be more difficult to port a cross-development system to Linux than a native development system. Any ideas?
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
You'd think CodeWarrior was killed altogether, the way some people are reacting. Metrowerks said the Linux version was on hold. It's not dead. CW in general's not dead. Too many MacOS, PalmOS, and Playstation developers live in CW every day for MW to discontinue it. Why are so many people here shoveling dirt on the casket before it's in the ground?
Reminds me of the shoe commercial where a US Women's Soccer Team member is getting a physical. The doctor gives her the tap-on-the-knee reflex test, and she kicks him across the room hard enough to bounce him high off the far wall. Kinda like the kneejerk reactions to bad Linux news around here.
Take a deep breath, and let the caffeine work through your system a little before declaring Motorola the new Evil Empire.
Keith Russell
OS != Religion
This sig intentionally left blank.
I don't want to look like an idiot or anything, but what does something like CodeWarrior give you that Emacs or XEmacs doesn't?
This is probabally the last major step that is needed to give people who are used to developing in an IDE something familiar and sufficiently powerful for them to code and develop in.
I wouldn't mind giving it a try, but I'd imagine there is someone out there that this would be the killer app for them to switch to Linux.
It's a shame to see management sitting on a good project, and one that I could see them making money on. It seems to never fail when a PHB gets involved with stuff they know or understand.
"If you insist on using Windoze you're on your own."
One imagines the "GNU Edition" of CodeWarrior for Linux hasn't been selling very well. I hope they didn't think it was because you can't sell commercial software to Linux heads. Not true.
The GNU Tools edition of Code Warrior was missing all the things that made me want the Pro version for my shop: it had no SCM integration, no other team development features, it was only for C/C++, and it had no form painter. Among other things.
Without at least some SCM integration (say, with CVS, PVCS and MKS for a start), what development shop is going to bother? Sure, it's an easy transition from Windows or Mac Codewarrior, but what good is it without most of the things that make a professional IDE so good?
Right now, as far as C++ tools go on Linux, KDevelop's actually ahead in some key areas. It's got a (Qt) form painter, CVS integration, auto-completion and very good integration not only with the old core GNU tools but also with modern things like autoconf.
But there's still a market ripe and hungry for professional-level tools on Linux. professiona; developers are one group that's already adopting Linux on the desktop. They're often not locked in by a need to use MS Office heavily, and are plenty happy to run development tools on a stable, sturdy platform. IBM gets it. Borland gets it. And Metrowerks shouldn't be so afraid of Cygnus. Cygnus makes swell compilers and specialized tools, among other things, but they're not about to make general-purpose IDE vendors lose much sleep.
Makefiles are not a nightmare. If you can't read your makefiles, then there's something terribly wrong.
.bashrc says. Define all your variables in the makefile itself.
I've been on many projects where it was impossible to read the makefiles, and nearly impossible to do a clean build. The problem was that some whiz kid decided to set up global makefiles all over the place, with implicit rules to handle illogical commands and directory structures. When you went to read a makefile, you first needed to be intimately familiar with 5 other included makefiles, all of which were 500 lines long, as well as the total directory structure of the project. Stupidity!
Makefiles are a breeze to use IF you:
1) don't include any global makefile crap
2) don't hide implicit build rules in a file included in a file included in another file included in yet another file included in still yet another file, which is finally included in your makefile, unless of course that sneaky user defined local makefile configuration wasn't abused by the user to deactivate the build rule defined above... yes, I've seen it.
3) put ONE makefile in a directory and have that makefile build either a program or a library. This makes it super simple and super understandable to build either an entire program or just a small part of it
4) make sure you've put the right targets in your makefile - make all, make clean, make doc, make install, make depend. The make depend is a snap because the gcc compiler will build your dependencies for you!
5) don't get tricky with the defines either. Your program should build the same no matter what your
If you do all these things and aim for makefile simplicity, then makefiles are the A-number-one best way to build a project. IDE's are a distant second.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
oh wait, someone named rms already did that w/ that five-letter program...
Personally, I hope CodeWarrior never sees the light of day on Linux. My university has it on all the IBM's and Mac's on campus. Unfortunately, the program crashes left, right and center. This crashing is especially hard on the Mac's, and has killed a number of them so bad as to leave them OS-less. Besides being poorly written, I'd rather see people do their coding themselves rather than having the computer do most of it for them (Back in my days, we made our classes by hand, and we LIKED it!)
-"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." -EH
I wonder how well Code Warrior GNU version sold. If it didn't do well, then perhaps that also influenced their descision to delay the full Linux version. The market for IDEs also got crowded very quickly, with several other products. That might have made sales less than they expected.
I did beta testing for Code Warrior, and while I thought some people might like it (if you use an IDE), it didn't seem to offer enough for me. What I really wanted to see, and why I joined the beta, was the metroworks compiler. I could use that outside of the IDE if I wanted.
I hope they change their mind, and release the full product. I think the tools are useful to a lot of developers. I think their full product would differentiate them from the rest of the pack and that should help sales.
- |Daryll
Well for 10 years we've been hearing how the NeXT development environment is one of the best ever invented. If true, why would Apple dump what they've got for a third party tool? (Does anyone know if NeXT IDE comes for free with OS X? I'd be a dumb move if it wasn't.)
/. poster that has bitched a few times about MS/IBM/Borland/Novell politics in the early days of OS/2. Things like that can cast a cloud over a new platform that it might never recover from.)
I'm sure they consider Metroworks very important for Carbon projects, but the momentum is clear -- new projects should be Cocoa, which means Objective C or Java which means not Metrowerks.
From Apple's point of view, it frees them from yet another Third Party Developer that can crap all over whatever their strategy is. When Symantac started cutting back on Mac development, things got shaky. Having Code Warrior appear was pure luck for Apple, and I don't think they want to go through that again. (As another reference, there's a
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
You know, this type of attitude really ticks me off.
I'm a decent programmer, but I'm not a compiler writer, or a kernel hacker, or a device driver guru. I have no doubt that if I absolutely had to, I could modify gcc, the kernel, or some device driver to fix a bug or add a minor feature. But you know what? Instead of spending thousands of hours building the tools I need to work with, I rely on someone else to write my compiler, my editor, my device drivers, my filesystems, and the kernel that runs 'em all.
My point? You can apply this description to both proprietary and OSS software; and in both cases, if the folks who are writing your software (Metrowerks, MS, the Apache Group, etc.) decide to stop working on a project/feature/enhancement you were waiting for, you're SOL. In both cases, you have the same choices - buy a replacement product; build your own replacement product; or hire someone to build you a replacement product. The only real advantage the OSS case has is that you have access to the source code, which means that it will be less expensive (although not neccesarily inexpensive) to choose either of the development options.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
My problem with the Windows/Macintosh approach to computing is that it is based around GUI tools. And because everything is done with GUI tools, there is no pressure to make it accessible programmatically and through plain text files.
If Linux/UNIX starts relying heavily on GUI tools as well, it will follow the same path, because the pressure to keep things simple and logical from a command line perspective will have been removed. In fact, there are already beginnings of that in various parts of Linux, where rather than designing a logical and simple textual configuration system, programs increasingly rely on graphical tools.
CodeWarrior is a fairly benign representative of the Windows/Macintosh approach to programming. Still, why should dpeople moving to Linux not use Emacs? And if they really want to use something like CodeWarrior, why not use at least an open source system instead?
From my point of view, it may actually be a good thing that CodeWarrior isn't coming to Linux. But, of course, your preferences for what Linux is to become may differ.
Linux has made it this far without anything as extravagent as Codewarrior.
There's still large factions that say that the CLI is superior to the GUI.
There are hundreds of free alternative to Code Warrior.
It seems understandable for a company to doubt how much impact their product will have on a hugely saturated market.
Maybe you guys are in love with IDE's or whatever? I happen to like Visual C++.. but I don't see a big incentive for having new compilers. I'd rather see an improved Gnu compiler... I'd pay for an improved compiler.
Because we ALREADY have to target multiple environments right now.. I can't even imagine having a new compiler on the block. Nightmare, IMHO.
So, go ahead and get Metroworks if you can.. but I hope they spend the time to "fit" into the linux model.. (comparable switches... command line compiler, etc.). If not, then they won't get my business.
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
I take no issue on your business choice. Like I said, that's A-OK. Sorry Metroworks failed you.. take a look at what else is out there.
You are free to select whatever tools you want, for whatever political, economic, or personal reasons you have. But my choice is based squarely on issues of reliability, economy, performance, and the precise needs of our business. To make our choice for us is a bit presumptuous, don't you think?
I made no political, economic, or personal argument. Would it be wrong if I did? It sounds like that's what YOU were doing to me. "Professional programers BUY their tools.", "Company's don't care about free software." "Metrolink is a better solution than gcc", were your arguments, respectivly to political, economic, and personal arguments.
Your rhetoric is trying to equate your personal preference as technically superior. I just don't think you know the difference between technical issues and personal preferences.
Maybe if you were to apply some of you 20 years of "what works and what doesn't" in the form of hand to keyboard, you could help develop tools that fit your preferences. We could use a better IDE for Linux.
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
Okay, I'll let you argue your point. How about this... GCC is targeted at over a 30 microprocessors.
Can run under
Not that I don't mean to say that your prefered environment isn't FANTASTIC.. but it is certainly not the best cross platform(if judged by this merit alone) tool available. I too would like to see a better interface developed for GNU.. but it's not there yet.
Also, don't you even TRY and argue that you are more a more professional developer because you bought your tools. The software and web-sites I have single-handedly designed and wrote over the past 5 years has brought on over 150 Million dollars of revenue a year. And yeah.. I still prefer perl, gnu c, and make.
And you comment about managing "large complicated projects" doesn't even push wind. Please.. someone do a wc -l on
I would argue that our "antiquated" tools are MUCH better designed for large, complicated, and geographically devided development teams. It just doesn't hold water to compare them. Good tools fit the developer, not the other way around. Good tools can use command line AND gui environments well. I havn't use Metrolink in 3 years.. but it wasn't there yet.
Besides, it makes you look like a ranting asshole. If you have a preference for the Metrolink development environment - then that's A-OK. Enjoy it. But why the need to take cheap pot-shots at the rest of us?
Pan
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
I was hoping it would make a great multi-platform Java environment. I guess I will have to stick with Visual SlickEdit for now.
I wish they would have a downloadable demo version of CodeWarrior too, I'd like to play with the GUI and editor a little to see if I like it.
They make the palm stuff, too. So it must be palms fault.
There is not even a version for Linux PPC. Just sounds like the engineer who championed it, lost his management champion. eg someone left after the sale.
But the lion's genes have a pretty good reason for programming their lion to do that; it's not just for the sake of changing things. The managers probably have a reason for this too, it's just that it might not make a lot of moral sense, especially to us outsiders.
BTW, city slicker, it's interesting that you wrote "like a nature show" instead of "like nature". I guess lions aren't a part of your day-to-day reality -- to you, they're just a media creation like Brittney Spears, huh? Well, I recommend you get a pet cat and pretend he a big fercious lion. s/meow/ROAR/ It'll be good for you. It's been good for me.
---
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I too was looking forward to it
Free Unix? Free Windows. http://www.reactos.com
I disagree. They are being responsive to the needs of some customers. They are guessing that these are the ones important to them. But each customer is important to himself. I have been congratulating myself for not purchasing CodeWarrior before the professional edition came out. I like a good IDE. Possibly I'll get one from Borland (or is it Inprise this week). Or Software Buero. Or CForge. Or... well, it won't be MetroWerks. (And I'm not too happy with Cygnus this week either. Their upgrade to Source Navigator left Linux users out to dry... They want to sell you an upgrade to Code Fusion instead. It may or may not be a good tool, but that choice sure leaves a bad aftertaste. So I'm looking elsewhere. [Code Crusader anyone?])
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I have to deal with Motorola at work at our 911 Center and they (the company) are horrible. There equiptment (hardware) is decent.
Our motorola dispatch consoles are stuck with NT that have to be rebooted about once a week (these are the computers that do ambulance,swat, fire paging). Our Linux consoles (that run several apps) have yet to fail in over a year. When I complained about this they said they will ONLY stick with NT.
I am very disapointed in Motorola.
Sherm
Managers understand complaints - intelligent and polite complaints. So if you care about Codewarrior, then do call them and write polite letters. If you're depending on their product like one writer already told, then go and set up a meeting with one of their top managers.
They are writing on their home page:
If you still have questions, feel free to ask. You can email us at info@metrowerks.com or give us a call at 1-512-873-4700
Why don't you just do it and keep on doing it. Signing some driver petitions doesn't help but it sure is better than flaming.
I think that we are talking about slightly different issues: you present a project that was once developed on one platform, then it was ported to other platforms. I suppose that you still add some features and bug fixes afterwards, but I assume that you do not re-structure large parts of the project regularly. I mentioned a project in which most of the code is being actively developed for all platforms at the same time, and there are some major changes done in the cross-platform code. When you have many platforms to support, including their variants (e.g. Windows CE for MIPS processor is not the same as Windows CE for SH3), then you have to be sure that any new source file added, deleted or renamed in the cross-platform libraries is correctly updated in all Makefiles (or whatever build system you are using).
In my project, we solved that problem by using included Makefiles that are shared by several platform-specific Makefiles, which allows the various builds to use the same source files even if each platform uses a different compiler and different settings. Another poster described a very similar solution. But even that is not always easy to manage, especially with several hundred source files in many different directories. If I break something, then it does not take long until a colleague complains that the version for this or that platform does not build anymore (or at the latest, the nightly build will send me a message about it).
The original poster in this thread said that he likes CodeWarrior because it is easier for him to manage his build system. If he is used to it and if that works well, then why not? I think that for large projects, some IDEs may be better than Makefiles if your applications contain a lot of stuff that is not pure code (i.e. icons, bitmaps, pre-made dialogs, hotkeys, etc.) and if that stuff must be available in more than one language. Some IDEs are quite good at handling all this "extra stuff" and I suppose that this is one of the reasons why he said that he relies on CodeWarrior.
Note that I am not the same person as the one who complained about the lack of CodeWarrior for Linux. In fact, I have never used CodeWarrior in any real project (and it is unlikely that I ever will, because I am quite experienced in writing good Makefiles). I was simply trying to explain that Open Source tools are not always available for developing software, especially on non-UN*X platforms, and this is why some companies rely on closed source IDEs.
-Raphaël
Open Source software is not always an option if you are writing cross-platform code: most Open Source development tools are available for Linux and various flavours of UN*X, but not for MacOS, Windows 95/98/NT/2K, Windows CE (a totally different beast), EPOC, PalmOS and so on. If you start with a product that was developed on the Mac and you want to port it to Linux, chances are that the product was relying on CodeWarrior, because CodeWarrior is one of the best integrated environments available on the Mac and there is no Open Source equivalent that comes close. If CodeWarrior is not available for Linux, then it will be harder to convert this product.
I am sure that many companies would not mind using Open Source tools, be it only for being sure that they have their future in their hands. But this is not always possible. And many companies do not have the resources (time and money) to invest in porting the best Open Source tools to their target platforms before starting to develop their products. They just have to live with the closed source IDEs, and hope that their suppliers will support their target platforms in the future.
At work, I am developing some software that is ported to Linux, Solaris, Windows 95/98/NT, Windows CE, EPOC, and maybe a few others soon. We decided to use Makefiles (handwritten or generated) for most of our build system, and to rely on included Makefiles (with nested includes) for making it easier to maintain the global settings and so on. Still, this can be a pain to maintain when you have dozens or hundreds of directories with their own Makefiles. I think that we made the right decision because Makefiles are future-proof and we have more control over what is going on in your build system. But we have to pay the price for that, and it is counted in extra hours when some significant change has to be applied to the build system.
Many companies prefer to set up their build system around some tools such as CodeWarrior, which are supposed to make it much easier to manage large projects. I don't blame them for that, because this is probably what gives them the best benefits compared to the set-up and maintenance costs in the short- or medium-term, especially for (very) large projects. If you have the opportunity to even think about the long term (not always an option when you have to get a product out of the door in the next few weeks), then I would always recommend using a system that does not rely on closed source products, such as Makefiles.
You can make your life easier under UN*X by using autoconf, automake and various other goodies for generating your Makefiles automatically, but these tools do not exist (yet) for Windows or for the Mac. And the cross-compilers are not always an option either. I'm still dreaming of a system that would allow me to have only one Makefile for compiling my code with the correct options under any system (or at least UN*X, Windows and MacOS)...
-Raphaël
I was tossing up between CODE FUSION and Code Warrior, why do you not consider CODE FUSION an option.
A couple years ago I thought that having a version of CodeWarrior for Linux would be ideal. At the time I was doing almost all my programming on MacOS, with an eye toward porting to Windows. It seemed important, then, to be able to have a single code base (using PowerPlant) that would produce GUI executables for all target platforms.
Having an X version of PowerPlant would have been a big help, as would have been the ability to code in Java and compile straight to binary executables (something that could be done under CodeWarrior for MacOS)
These days, however, I'm doing pretty much all my coding for *nix/X Windows. With MacOS migrating to a Mach/BSD base I don't feel any need to write old-style MacOS versions of my code, and I figure that anyone using Windows can fend for themselves.
I think that CodeWarrior just missed their window of opportunity. A year or so ago there was a real need for good cross platform development tools. Now that it looks like the whole world will be running *nix in a few years, however, I don't think there is nearly as much interest (or need) for such things.
They had a BeOS port that came with the DR versions. That didn't seem too hard. They already have a linux version out, and I'm not surprised that redhat hasn't spoken out about this. CW _is_ supposed to be for that distro, at least if you believe the hype.
Lowmag.net
Tell us this then: Who are the people buying CodeWarrior?
Professional Developers.
What do they do?
BUY their deveolpment tools.
Have no doubt, this is their market, and people will buy if there is a need. That remains to be seen with Makefiles and autoconfigure scripts.
Lowmag.net
Isn't this why the FSF came into being? Others have been burned in similar situations. The FSF lists the problems with non-free software:
When a program has an owner, the users lose freedom to control part of their own lives.
light of day on Linux because the cost will be too high to retrofit them into the text-only Makefile nightmare that
is g++. THAT should be a reason for Linux users to complain -- Metrowerks' decision to cancel this product
deprives you of software that otherwise will never be ported from Windows or the Mac because Linux doesn't
have the rich set of IDE-based tools that modern developers rely on to deliver code in a cost-effective manner.
Please don't consider the previous statement flame bait. It's not. It's a cold, hard fact about managing large,
complicated development tasks. There are better ways to do it now in the 21st century than using a directory full
of text files glued together with a batch-oriented makefile. Metrowerks has what is arguably one of the best
cross-platform environments for doing this and now you'll never see it (or the software that would have been
ported with it) because Metrowerks has reneged on a long-standing promise. Boo!
While I'm not a big fan of IDEs, there are starting to be other commercial offerings. Check out IBM's Visual Age for Java. Now that IBM's commiting to strongly support Linux, they may be willing to port Visual Age for C++ to Linux as well (if I were in charge there, I'd certainly see this as a Big opportunity)
Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani?
www.fogbound.net
For little scripts and the such I still use vi, or sometimes emacs (depends on my mood), but for big projects, I tend to use CodeForge. Just my $.02 :)
To E-mail me, replace the first period in my domain with an @
Why would Linux/UNIX people want to use a grahical IDE? Isn't the *nix philosophy: "Many small tools that do one thing well"?
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Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Having worked for the big M in the past, this move does not surprise me at all. Motorola occasionally sees a need to be filled that they do not have the capability to handle or the time to ramp up, and buy it. The saddest part of all is that after their need is filled, they typically either split up or dissolve the company.
I would start saying bye bye to codewarrior, but then again 3COM does buy a lot of those dragonball processors for their Palm platform. It will be interesting to see how this all works out.
They're aiming for 2 million signatures, which is a bit high, but if a significant number of people actually take the time to sign this petition then there is a greater chance that hardware companies will take note. If you've ever written an inflamatory note about some hardware company not releasing drivers for Linux, this is your chance to cast your vote.
It only takes a minute and it won't hurt a bit.
I am a Java programmer looking for a good stepping stone into the Linux C++ world.. Could Borlands C++ Builder be a good stepping stone?
Those Bastards! They killed Codewarrior...
Seriously though, this is a bummer. Although i'm not a particularly big fan of the codewarrior interface, i think that the more choices for development environments we can get, the better off we are.
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Play Six Pack Man. I
My info is that Mot bought them because the internal tools groups are ineffective at best and they could unify the internal tools development at Metroworks. Problem with that 'brilliant' idea is that the Metroworks programmers wont stick around long if all they are writing is chip verification tools and layout routing tools. Not to mention having to work for Moto management...
Starman97@Gmail.com (bring it on spammers)
I'm not sure you've picked the best example. Did win2000 come in on time and on budget? Of course this doesn't mean that it's MS's choice of dev tools that are to blame ;-)
BTW I use Xemacs for all my development (works X-platform and X-language). What I think we could do with are tools which provide some of the back-end work provided by IDE's (E.g. syntax analysis, context sensitive completion, incremental compilation, etc.) through a well defined interface/protocol. Editors such as emacs/vi could link to these to provide services, and for those that want it graphical front ends, could provide the whole IDE experience. This would be much more flexible, and more in keeping with Unix/Linux philosophy, than the shove it all in one product, GUI and all, approach of commercial vendors products.
The petition link is broken, or at least the evil proxy I'm sitting behind doesn't like it.
Fixed link here.
Anthony
"I think any time you expose vulnerabilities it's a good thing." -Attorney General Janet Reno
Metrowerks makes by far the most popular development environment for the Mac. Symantec used to, but during Apple's transition from 68K to PPC chips, Metrowerks got there first with PPC support, and Symantec was late. Symantec's product is no longer even available. Metrowerks probably realizes that with Mac OS X on the way, someone could do to them what they did to Symantec if they're not careful.
It will require significant resources to bring CodeWarrior to Mac OS X, so it's possible that Linux development had to be scaled back. Of course the fact that Mac OS X runs on PPC, while Linux is mostly used on x86 machines probably plays some part in this as well.
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But just because C++ Builder is a great product doesn't mean that Borland is going to suddenly sweep Linux programmers off their feet. There are a number of good IDE's out there for Linux (including C++ Builder, I'm sure) and KDevelop happens to be one of them. Hey, I don't really care one way or the other... I use KWrite and Gnome-Terminal for most of my coding, so what does that tell you?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I don't see the point of complaining. A cavaliar [sic] attitude towards customers is an inherent feature of closed source software.
This is nonsense, of course. Any business that adopts a cavalier attitude towards its customers is dead, but doesn't know it. Unless a monopoly barrier to entry exists, the company will be devastated by its competition in due course.
The decision to focus limited resources in favor of an existing customer base over a potential new or expanded customer base is rational, and reflects due attention to, not neglect of, one's customers.
As Bork wrote, the truth is far more interesting. Market-based proprietary systems tend to be far more responsive to broad-based customer demands than does individual open-source work, precisely because there is no individual who is accountable to the marketplace. A company can justify expending significant resources because the spending of a dollar generates greater return.
For PRECISELY THIS REASON, however, open source can far more effectively serve minority, or orphaned market needs. Here, the minority customers do end up being unserved, because no one can justify building the larger infrastructure to build an entire application with the minority-needed feature, but the entity with the big shell is busy handling majority-market requirements. With open source, the infrastructure is there, and if it is effectively reusable, minority interests can be economically served if truly needed.
So, there is truth to both positions. However, to accuse Metrowerks of ignoring present non-customer and minority customer interests precisely when they are attending to majority customer interests with their limited resources is sophistry at best.
okay, first of all, Objective C was never dropped. That's a rumor that's been going around, but there's nothing to support it. Most of the mac rumor sites (and a number of mac news sites) have reported on this and they say that Objective C is still the best way to write to cocoa. It is true that apple has made the entire cocoa API available to Java, but Objective C has not been dropped and is still considered the primary way to develop for cocoa.
--- Don't ever trust a woman until she's dead- B.B. King
I've been pretty satisfied with Code Crusader. It looks and acts a lot like CodeWarrior, and is very stable. I don't know how well it would scale up to larger projects, but it's worth checking out.
OK, guess we can all get ready to use C++ Builder for Linux. Not that I'm complaining, but that's what this will mean.
Yeah, I could hand-code it or use the other tool sets, but let's get real here.
Will in Seattle
I am surprised. I didn't know that you could easily develop libraries for Linux that can mimic the win32, macOS, os2 and palm APIs. Perhaps you should publish this wonderful emulation library you have! Put MS *and* Apple out of business!
</sarcasm>
I agree that it is possible to create a cross-platform portability library to allow you to use a single platform for most of your development. This is the _Right_Thing_To_Do_(tm). This library, however, needs to be written and maintained. That means you need to build, test, and debug on all your target configurations before you can develop your application from your favorite desktop.
This isn't too bad assuming you're writing a middle-level application -- text based, mostly ANSI C stuff. Once you start into high-level you need to deal with the intricacies of particular window systems; you really have to deal with the actual target. The same holds at the very low-level (where I live). Just because I can cross-assemble ARM or PPC code on a x86 machine doesn't mean I'll get the calling convention right.
The reality of cross-platform software development isn't development, it's debugging. There's always something that runs on A but not on B, no matter how portable your code seems. When that happens, you have no choice but to fire up the debugger on B and figure it out. The harsh truth is most debuggers suck badly, and most of them are radically different.
What I'm really ranting about is the lack of good debugging tools. If debugging is neurosurgery; the debugger our scalpel. WinDbg is sharp but the blade breaks off a lot. Gdb is a 2-handed battle axe -- cuts well but it's not great for fine work. Most of the rest range from butter knives to plastic sporks to rubber mallets.
I don't really want an IDE. I'll put up with a dozen different compilers and various implementations of make. I just want a good debugging story with a powerful and extensible visual front end that handles assembler source and has useful conditional breakpoints; coupled with a remote back-end that runs on every CPU and OS.
That and flying pigs, honest politicians, and cold fusion.
Drinking will help us plan!
Simple question, simple answer: cross platform development. It may surprise you to learn that there are other platforms in the world than Linux.
If you're developing for more than one target a consistent editor/compiler/debugger story is a huge win. I'd give up several important parts of my anatomy to have something like Microsoft's WinDbg debugger (the one that comes with the NT SDK) on all the platforms I have to deal with. Instead I'm stuck with a powerful winnt/x86 debugger, a couple of variants of gdb and dbx (moderately useful, no assembler source) and a handful of even stranger (barely useful) tools for other OS/CPU configurations.
Getting rid of the mental context switch between two or more toolsets is well worth 300 bucks. A powerful tool that works everywhere you work is priceless.
Drinking will help us plan!
Hmm. It says that JX is only free for non-commercial use and therefore it is not Open Source as such.
You know, I had overlooked that rationale. I'm afraid you might be right, which is even more of a concern when you consider what that might mean for cross-platform work between Windows and Macs with CodeWarrior going forward.
Of course, LinuxPPC's existence flies in the face of that reasoning if Motorola's rationale for terminating the Linux version of CodeWarrior was to restrict x86 competition. In fact, by not releasing CodeWarrior for LinuxPPC, Motorola is actually diminishing their own market share further. Maybe someone should point this out to them? :)
Ultimately, I'm just really disappointed because we enjoy a wonderful development environment where engineers can use whatever platform (Win32 or Mac) they choose, and we have 100% compatibility between the tools. In fact, the Mac users can sit down at a PC and vice versa and know exactly how to use the CodeWarrior tools on either platform. I know there's no other IDE that can make this claim and I was really looking forward to seeing our products on Linux as well using this technology.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
hehe. Well, there are enough Linux aficionados here in the office that you can bet someone will find a way to get our new stuff running under Linux. All but a few engineers here have at least one machine running Linux. It'll just have to wait until someone has a free weekend to puzzle out the build process and a few GUI issues.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
hehe. Well, there are enough Linux aficionados here in the office that you can bet someone will find a way to get our new stuff running under Linux. All but a few engineers here have at least one machine running Linux. It'll just have to wait until someone has a free weekend to puzzle out the build process and a few GUI issues.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
That was essentially my original point. I never implied that "professional developers buy their tools". What I meant to say was that professional developers have an additional requirement to do things in their economic best interests. In our case, forcing engineers to switch toolsets to something that they feel is a less productive, more complicated environment is not an economically viable option for us right now.
When we were looking at writing a few hundred lines of portability code and then a recompilation with CodeWarrior, Linux versions of our software were a lot closer to reality. Adopting a second, entirely different set of engineering tools and processes is just not an option if the net result is reaching a few dozen more paying customers.
This same problem confronted Adobe when Be approached them to port Photoshop to BeOS. I was in the room with all parties when this was discussed. Jean-Louis made a compelling case for the market and the business opportunity. In the end Adobe decided that the cost to port was too high because (at the time), BeOS didn't have the same standard development tools that Adobe was using for Mac and PC development. Adobe felt the cost of the port would be higher than the revenue they'd see over the next several years, so they simply declined.
In our case, our next product will have a version distibuted for free. So we can't argue this issue from a profit standpoint, only from expense and time to market issues. As a small company, we can't afford hits to either. So having our major productivity "ace-in-the-hole" removed from Linux means that the math now says no port. I'm sure we're not the only company in this position.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
This is a non-argument. We have only two platforms to support currently (Win32, Mac) and would like to add Linux. That gcc is a Swiss Army Knife of command line options and back ends is irrelevant.
The ONLY relevant issue is that we have a staff of engineers that is familiar with a specific tool, namely CodeWarrior. We have development, QA, and release processes based on this tool. We also have a long standing relationship with the vendor, Metrowerks. That gcc or g++ exists and that some people find it an acceptable development environment in no way makes a compelling case for us abandoning a highly productive environment for one that is clearly an old-style way of doing business and not one our engineers are comfortable in.
So I reiterate my original statement. You probably won't see our products on Linux unless there is an easier, more productive tool set than what comes with a stock Linux install. 20 years of software development has taught me that choosing the right tool for the job is paramount. And gcc/g++ simply isn't the right tool for our job.
You are free to select whatever tools you want, for whatever political, economic, or personal reasons you have. But my choice is based squarely on issues of reliability, economy, performance, and the precise needs of our business. To make our choice for us is a bit presumptuous, don't you think?
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
Our cross-platform product build process is completely based on Metrowerks' tools. We were promised on several occasions by the president and CTO of Metrowerks that the Linux tools were in the pipeline for release "soon". Metrowerks had already done most of the hard work when they ported their tools for use on Solaris. Supporting Linux just isn't that hard after that. I could give a rat's ass about signing "support Linux" petitions. It's not like corporate software execs are going to pay attention to a list of people who have a credo that says they think all software should be free. That's no motivation for them to expend R&D dollars on a product for a market that doesn't pay for software in general. What I *do* want is someone at Metrowerks to step up and honor the promises they made to hundreds of professional developers that were counting on CodeWarrior tools to deliver cross-platform versions of their product to Linux users. There are plenty of products that will now never see the light of day on Linux because the cost will be too high to retrofit them into the text-only Makefile nightmare that is g++. THAT should be a reason for Linux users to complain -- Metrowerks' decision to cancel this product deprives you of software that otherwise will never be ported from Windows or the Mac because Linux doesn't have the rich set of IDE-based tools that modern developers rely on to deliver code in a cost-effective manner. Please don't consider the previous statement flame bait. It's not. It's a cold, hard fact about managing large, complicated development tasks. There are better ways to do it now in the 21st century than using a directory full of text files glued together with a batch-oriented makefile. Metrowerks has what is arguably one of the best cross-platform environments for doing this and now you'll never see it (or the software that would have been ported with it) because Metrowerks has reneged on a long-standing promise. Boo!
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
No kidding! I bought one copy to evaluate for our company and was astonished by how bad it is. The first problem is with the basic design of the IDE: It was hideous how many times you have to take your hands off the keyboard and go to the mouse. Now, I realize that for many Mac adherents, that isn't considered a "bad thing", but for anyone used to doing any CLE, it was such a major annoyance that I couldn't recommend it to anyone. Not to mention the cruddy way that it handled projects.
IF mac programmers hate taking their hands off the keyboard, and IF mac programmers are using codewarrior so much (like they have a choice), then why haven't they put shortcuts in everywhere?
In fact, I even talked to some of the developers of codewarrior once, asked if they were going to put in more shortcuts in their debugger, and the response was not encouraging. It was as if the developers had not even THOUGHT about such things, so apparently they haven't been getting a lot of feedback asking for these things.
So, if the people who make the software (on macs) don't think about putting in shortcuts, and the people who use the software (on macs) don't ask for it, then I'm merely assuming that the people who use the software on macs do not wish to have shortcuts. I never said anything about the mental ability (or lack of) about anyone who uses or doesn't use a particular platform.
Metrowerks experienced LOWER THAN ACTICIPATED SALES for the EXISTING LINUX release.
Which do you thinks Metrowerks management will notice more?
A. INCREASED existing Linux release sales. (POSITIVE CASH FLOW)
B. Names on a petition. (VERBAL OUTCRY)
C. Both VERBAL OUTCRY & POSITIVE CASH FLOW
D. none of the above.
I came *very* close to buying it, but I was sorta put off by the way they marketed it -- having RedHat- and SuSE-specific versions seemed rather idiotic. I assume they did it that way to make it easier for them to give installation support (that is: I can't imagine a reason why one couldn't run it in, say, Corel Linux; though maybe I'm wrong). Regardless of how reasonable their rationale was, it certainly created the perception that Linux was quickly balkanizing into separate incompatible distros. That trend was definitely a BadThing(tm). Promise Inc. did this as well, supplying RedHat-specific drivers for their 66 card. Again, by labeling them that way (payback to RedHat, who helped write'em, I suppose) they create an erroneous and potentially damaging perception of a fragmented community. I understand the pragmatic reasons, but I hate giving ammunition (even illusory ammunition) to those people spreading FUD about the inevitable balkanization of Linux as a reason to avoid it.
You might be, but many people aren't. I have used the command line, and trust me, there is nothing as nice as the project concept. In Windows, if I were to use the commandline, I would have to type in this.
"cl main.cpp libx.cpp liby.cpp etc.cpp morestuff.cpp" For my library, which has about 10 independant source files, it takes quite awhile to type that in. Then I have to type in link, etc.obj dxguid.lib ddraw.lib blah blah blah. In windows it is especially harsh since Win32 is spread out over numerous libraries. (About 10 or 15.) Sure, you can make a makefile, but you can in visual too. Say I add a file to my project. Can you open up the makefile in emacs, edit it to include the new file, go back to the command line, and type make etc before I can right click on "Add to project" and hit the build button? Even quitting out of your editor and typing make etc.cpp takes more time than hitting build (you can do it from a keyboard shortcut too.) So, for all but the simples projects, the IDE approach is faster. And you don't have to use all the built in objects. I write straight C/C++ code, but the integrated environment makes it easier for me to concentrate on the code. In addition, you don't get all the nifty features in Emacs. So far VC++ is the only coding tool I have used that does code completion. Sure you can say it is for weenies who can't keep their variables straight, but then you would be wrong. The Win32 API has functions that take many arguements, and instead of going to the help menu and looking up function XXX, I can just type in the name and as I'm typing a tooltip pops up next to the cursor saying the arguements the function takes. Also, if your style is correct, you should have long, discriptive variable and function names. It is so much easier to type the first few letters then hit enter, than it is to type out the whole thing. BTW, people do use codewarrior. On BeOS it is the interface to GCC and in fact works very well.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Lack of shortcuts is inexcusable, but I take offense the the fact that you say, that it may be okay for Mac adherents. Make people hate taking their hands of the keyboard just as much as UNIX people. Believe it or not Mac people aren't all brainless idiots. So, yes it is considered a "bad thing" to have to take your hands of the keyboard, even for Mac users. I could make the same generalized comment about Linux users. (It amazing how many time you actually have to configure something with a SIMPLE dialog box!) But I'd be wrong.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
There's no mention of this on their website that I could find. Does anyone have a URL for a page on their site that contains a press release?
Please excuse me for not getting my knickers in a bunch with no solid proof to back this up.
If it's true, then this pretty much sucks and looks like a bad business move. I really don't understand why they would do it unless they were simply trying to kill the product.
Smells like Good Times Virus to me.
-chaos
When you can't find your jello don't come screaming at me to remove the weasle from your headgear.
And this would be the main reason that they have backed off from their Linux development. It does not make good business sense to them to finish development of a product that most users of this platform expect to get for free.
To be is.... To not be is not....
Motorola is not an orchestra working together. It is a collection of warring tribes who make purchases to satisfy their own business needs. Semiconductor Products Sector purchased Metrowerks in order to be able to direct them as to which processors to create tools for. Metrowerks already had plenty of deals with many embedded software companies to supply toolchains. SPS had problems getting support for some not so popular products (like certain DSP chips) so they bought Metrowerks. This way they can force Metrowerks to support all the processors they produce.
It probably has nothing to do with Linux and everything to do with reallocating Metrowerks resources to meet the business needs of SPS.
Jeez. Chill.
Metroworks is a tools company that was just bought by Motorola, a major international corporation that has a completely different way of working.
Anytime there is a buyout like this, the smaller company will go through a months long period of adjustment and resource re-allocation to be (for lack of a better word) assimilated. Becuase of these changes in company focus, there will be a number of products that are put on hold, especially smaller projects such as linux codewarrior.
Codewarrior will not killed off. It's one of the leading development environments for Mac's. Therefore Motorola has a vested interest in keeping it going becuase they make Apple's chips.
Once the realignment is complete, Metroworks will probably pick up the projects that were put on hold. If they had not recognized the value of linux tools, they would not have started the project in the first place.
Note that Motorola Computer Group was one of the first people to sign on for embedded linux. I would not be surprised if MCG has already started apply intra-corporate pressure to have the linux codewarrior project continued.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
Sig:
Barbeque is a noun. Not a verb.
CodeWarrior for both MacOS and Linux would aid portability in both directions. They do have to ask themselves a couple of questions though. In the end, code will get ported in both directions, but which way will dominate?
This will help them to go head-to-head with other processors to capture the hearts of Linux users. Can they use it to encourage us to buy their processors? They won't do it with bad optimization for other processors. That will just kill the Linux version of CodeWarrior. They'd have to find ways to make the switch appealing in a way that is cost-effective for them to implement and cost-effective for us to buy. Unfortunately, they would be jumping into a commoditized market, which generally cuts profit margins to the bone. Can anyone offer them suggestions?
The net will not be what we demand, but what we make it. Build it well.
I could point to some of the features in the Mac edition that saved me that amount of money many times over.
:-)
It's not how much it costs, it's how many hours you can get home earlier and snuggle with your girlfriend instead of wondering where the fsck that bug is hiding. Now that must be worth something to you, right?
-John
I've seen it run on a Mac as well. Not very useful for you, I admit, but it is definately not Windows-Only if you want to develop for Palm. With recent rumors about Apple doing a Palm based handheld as well, and Palm being very popular among Apple engineers for some time, well, that's no surprise, I guess.
On hold reminds me a bit of another tool whose name I blissfully forgot, where people said "it supports drag and drop - it's dragged along for years, and now it's been dropped".
-John
What's the ultimate solution then? Forget IDEs and use gmake. Gmake is available for most common platforms (*nix, NT/95) and you can maintain one set of makefiles for every platform. We adopted this approach in our company around 2 years ago and it is a brilliant setup.
We have a common makefile that defines platform specific variables at the 'root' level which is pulled in by the compiler specific makefile(contains compiler/linker flags etc) which in turn gets loaded by the application/library specific makefile (which contains source files and directory settings). So we have n compiler specific makefiles one root makefile and m app specific makefiles where m indicates the number of projects. This way we usually have to modify the application specific makefiles only.
... and neither EMACS or PERL "are Unix". They're escapees from the fevered brains of RMS and LW, neither of whom are renowned for their aversion to creature feep.
--
Cheers
Cheers
Jon
Yet Another Reason Not To Depend On Closed Source Products -- your future is not in your own hands.
I don't see the point of complaining. A cavaliar attitude towards customers is an inherent feature of closed source software. Even if you manage to get Metrowerks to reverse, what about the next closed source product you decide to depend on? You going to spend your life doing these kinds of battles?
. . we're doomed.
_________________________
CodeWarrior on Mac is fairly nice; if you've ever tried their CodeWarrior for Linux though, it was the biggest piece of non-working junk I've ever seen. Totally unusable; if I'd bought a copy I would have returned it immediately along with a long and angry letter. The thing was released several months too soon and was a sort of mutant combination of Motif and Mac widgets.
If they didn't sell any copies of this, it's not surprising. No one who evaluated the product could possibly have decided to purchase it.
I know a lot of you think that gmake is sexy and that real programmers debug using printf, but once you've used a real IDE like CodeWarrior, everything else seems so primitive.
Why is it that no one who has done substantial development on a Unix platform thinks that IDEs are the shit, while people who routinely develop for Windows or Mac can't fathom not using them ?
All an IDE does is provide you with SOME of the usability that a few terminals, a decent shell, gdb, and a decent programming editor (take your pick) provide.
VB sucks big time as a language, but the means for even a mediocre programmer to wrap his/her programs in something that *looks* good, and for the good coder to wrap those nice algorithms in a selling package is what keeps windoze going.
All opinions are my own - until criticized
Not quite - they now get Dell laptops (evil NT)
Visit
I don't get why motorola would buy them out.
Because their compilers suck rocks. The IDE is okay (for an IDE), but the compilers are terrible to the point of making PowerPC performance look a lot worse than it is. That hurts Motorola's sales, so naturally they want to improve the compiler.
Sumner
-- rage, rage against the dying of the light
Actually I know 3 people working there, and all have been quite pleased with it as far as I can tell. Although it seems they miss the smaller-time feel Metroworks had before with looser management, 20%+ raises and healthy Motorolla stock incentives after the turnover certainly didnt bother any of them. Attrition seems to be normal, for a high tech company in a town with a lot of high tech companies.
The comment you responded to answers the question - you don't develop for linux. This calls into question whether you're more of a linux advocate or Free Software heretic...
Why would you BUY a programming tool for linux?
This is a very interesting question, and a good example of what is happening to the Linux community right now.
Maybe the question should be asked: Why would YOU buy a programming tool for linux?
Now _that's_ interesting, and it really begins to scratch the surface of the problem: that the people you can't relate to/don't understand/don't respect are the same people currently riding straight into town to take part of this brand new thing they've heard of called the Linux/Open Source revolution (i.e., regular computer users) What does that mean? It means that the people you have all been hoping to start using Linux at a desktop level are in fact the exact same people who suddenly start asking for pretty GUIs, nice big bloated applications, suites of software, plug-and-play, no command-lines (PUH-LEASE!), and before you know it, it's like waking up one morning and realizing that the friends from University that asked to crash at your place "a couple of nights" aren't your friends anymore - obnoxious buggers, in fact - and that you're suddenly very uncomfortable with the entire situation.
And guess what? Pretty soon you'll want to move out just to get some peace and quiet.
Just my take on it, anyway.
/ Mikas
"That's funny. I just had this conversation the other day!"
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
This is unfortunate, I was looking forward to this particular product. I prefer the good ol' command line, but there comes a time when I want to slop something together without constructing a makefile, etc...
I think the biggest strength of this product is luring developers who are used to a GUI into Linux, and OpenSource development. A lot of developers a deterred from participating in OpenSource projects due to having to learn a set archaic compiler commands (which I love).
A Lot of developers that I know havent even created their own makefiles before. They have done all of it with VisualStudio, or CodeWarrior on the Macintosh.
CodeWarrior isnt a replacement for good old gcc, but it is a bonus perk for people who want to get up to speed quickly in the type of development environment they are used to.
I suspect (with ear close to the ground) that MOTO have not forsaken the GNU/Linux community. After the release of the Mac OS X version the Linux and other versions (*nix) will follow and be excellent products worth paying real $s for. The Linux version is likely to be very compatible with the Mac OS X version.
I don't get why motorola would buy them out. Unless they wanted a nice development kit for some new op code language they have planned.
I just don't see what the buyout gives BigM and even if they were just on a technology hunt why bother changing a successful product lineup?
Does it ever seem like management type people change things just for the sake of changing them? Kind'a like a nature show where a new lion takes over the den and kills off all the cubs that aren't his own...
I know a lot of you think that gmake is sexy and that real programmers debug using printf, but once you've used a real IDE like CodeWarrior, everything else seems so primitive. It would be a shame to see the Linux version dropped.
I routinely use MS DevStudio on Windows and CodeWarrior on the Mac, and there is just no comparison. DevStudio is quirky and frustrating, and their debugger is both unintuitive and limited. CodeWarrior is slick, clean, and fast, and the debugger is a joy to use. It's the little things, like dragging and dropping files into the project and having it do the right thing, or being able to click on a void * in the debugger and being able to instantly view it as an array of 100 doubles (or whatever else), that make it so much nicer. I've never found an environment with all of these features in the Unix world. Let's hope they change their minds and continue the CodeWarrior/Linux project.
John Carmack likes graphical ide's
So tell him to do a Google search for RHIDE. RHIDE is Robert Höhne's IDE that looks just like Borland Turbo C++.
and he uses code warrior for linux for porting the various quakes to linux.
The easiest way to port a program to DOS, Window$, and *nix/X simultaneously is to write it to the Allegro API.
said he would probably ignore linux if code warrior didn't exist.
He even helped changed the course of microsofts directx. Versions 6 and 7 are quite an improvement after Carmack got on microsofts ass for sub quality api's.
The new APIs are better but still a bit confusing. And it's still not portable; Allegro is. They're even working on Be Allegro.
I bet Motorolla would listen to him if he signed part of the partition or email them. I don't know. Its worth a shot.
Motorola's MPC7400 (used in Power Mac G4) is faster than AMD's Athlon (aka K7). Can your CPU say the same?
Will I retire or break 10K?
For me it was KDevelop. Code Fusion is nice, but KDevelop is kickin' chicken for a great environment.
Saves you from figuring out a lot about autoconf, QT, etc... makes migrating frmo Windows development much easier. Plus its open source.
I'm sorry, but a scarcastic comment deserves a scarcastic answer: It may surprise you to learn that I develop applications for a variety of platforms (win 9x/nt, linux, macos, os/2, palmpilot) all on my linux box. I find it easiest to use an extensible OS (such as linux), and just write libraries that mimic the platform I am developing for. This allows me to have one common development environment that is completely customized to my desires, and it doesn't cost me a penny.
=======
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
My personal debugger is DDD. I'm afraid I don't have the web site handy, or I would pass it off to you. I suspect that it's ddd.com or .org. Bad memory, sorry. Try using it. It is one of the most popular debuggers for the linux environment, and its free.
BTW, as for my libraries, as soon as I get some bugs worked out, I am going to be publishing them. Although they are far from perfect, they provide enough functionality that I can build and test (kinda) apps for other os's on my linux box.
=======
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
My personal debugger is DDD. I'm afraid I don't have the web site handy, or I would pass it off to you. I suspect that it's ddd.com or .org. Bad memory, sorry. Try using it. It is one of the most popular debuggers for the linux environment, and its free.
BTW, as for my libraries, as soon as I get some bugs worked out, I am going to be publishing them. Although they are far from perfect, they provide enough functionality that I can build and test (kinda) apps for other os's on my linux box.
=======
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
Yeah, metroworks is great and all, but it cost like 300 bucks, and GCC comes with all linux distros. I'd rather use that, pico/emacs, and DDD (all for free), and save my money for a new monitor.
=======
There was never a genius without a tincture of madness.
PERL is a do everything glue language that helps people write tools so that they can use a bunch of the "do one thing and do it well" tools together.
STAR office and Corel Office are composite tools.
I prefer to develop in an IDE. I think a lot of people do. And in order for Linux and other OS's to reach the mainstream, they are going to have to embrace multiple philosophies, not just the "Do one thing and do it well" philosophy.
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
Flame away, but if a closed source company who earns money by selling the software they create (a normal business) can't sell it's software to a certain market, it won't look at that market, OR it will try to change that market so it WILL buy the software. Make Closed Source software bad and evil, but lots of people here, as myself, live from the money we make working on software that pays our salaries, because it's sold. If Metroworks decides the linux market isn't interesting because the majority of the users won't buy the product, why take the hassle for porting the tool, set up supportlines, write manuals etc? it will cost a lot of money and they probably won't see that back. I can fully understand why they took this decision.
;). No, it's because the majority is used to the fact that most of the software is free and open source. IMHO ok, but not every piece of software can be free. This misunderstanding is IMHO a weak spot in the Open Source model.
;-D) be free ;)
Why won't the majority of linuxusers buy the tool? because it's crap? naaa, there is not really an alternative like it, only VC++ beats it, but that's not available on Unix
"Write an Open SOurce equivalent!" Sure. But that takes time, plus it's not sure if it's up to par with the closed source tool it has to replace within a certain amount of time (it's nice to have a good tool after 2 years of coding, but that's not very usable at the moment or within 6 months).
I wish everybody a VC++ equivalent development environment on linux, I also think it will be hard for a lot of linux users to convince software developers there ARE people on linux willing to pay for a tool, closed source or not.
If you are reasonable, not everything on earth like bread, cars, gasoline, playboychannel can (but perhaps should !
Never underestimate the relief of true separation of Religion and State.
They probably realized none of you cheap bastards would pay for it and cut their losses. Those "hundreds" of free alternatives are still in alpha/beta and are poor copies of something commercial.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Maybe it's about X. And I don't mean OS X, although in a way I do.
Apple is not enthusiastic about there being an X Window System running on the new Macs with OS X. Needless to say they have their own GUI agenda.
If there's no Metrowerks port for Linux, there's no development of it as a tool to develop X applications. That means there won't be a whole body of code that can easily be ported over to OS X.
This is coming out sounding like a conspiracy theory kind of thing, but I can see where Apple would encourage Metrowerks to not put resources into anything that has to do with the X Window System.
I hope I'm not way off base in making this assertion.
Have you heard any news from upper Michigan lately? From western Pennsylvania? From Idaho?
Could that be because they are dull as ditchwater?
Linux product on hold ?
So what ? Did actually anybody use this famous "Code Warrior" ?
I'd think they wouldn't put it
on hold, if there was big market for it.
I'm pretty happy with old plain command line
and I don't know anybody actually using CW,
but maybe it's just me....
Minek http://minek.nodevice.com
I was going to buy it. I in fact tried to do so on Friday last week at a local store and then tried yesterday through their web site. Of course, I was the person who forwarded this message on to Slashdot in the first place so maybe I'm in a minority.
Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia.
I just talked with metrowerks customer service and they have not heard about this. Customer service forwarded my name and email to the Linux group that is supposed to get back to me.
Although gcc has improved over the years - it's not as solid or as reilable as the MW compiler is. Linux really needs C++ compilers of commercial quality to allow serious porting to occur.
This is the response I get after asking if your rumor is true: Mark Kundinger - Metrowerks Customer Service: Thank you for your email regarding our Linux tools. Here is the official word from management on the status of future Linux versions of CodeWarrior: "Metrowerks has not discontinued its support for Linux tools. The Linux space is one of the fastest growing segments in the market, and we are continually assessing our product strategy to best meet the needs of developers. As always, Metrowerks is committed to providing best-of-class tools for multiple platforms."
I had looked very closely at the CodeWarrior product and was actually waiting for the 5.0 Professional version to come out so I could purchase it. Being a software engineer by trade, Linux user at the core and doing custom work as a consultant I've been looking at any IDE that would run on my platform of choice. The 5.0 Professional version was supposed to have a feature set I needed and had in the budget to purchase. Guess I have to go check out the alternatives now.