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XCode Roundup
Durin_Deathless writes "XCode 1.5 is now available to the general public through ADC. Highlights include dead code stripping, remote debugging, Subversion support, and improved editor speed. There's also a new GCC, which is supposed to compile faster, and lots of AppleScript changes. Also, code completion now works in Java and AppleScript."
djabbour writes "Blizzard Entertainment develops its games simultaneously on the Windows and Mac OS X platforms. This article claims Xcode Tools 'play [a] critical role.'"
The article mentions the various tools that come with Xcode, but not Xcode itself. Reading between the lines, I guess Blizzard is probably still using CodeWarrior for actual compilation work.
http://www.themeparks.ie
As much as I love Apple, I'm a disappointed by this Blizzard article. I preface all this by saying that I've been Mac OS dev for several years now and love Apple's OS quality ethic to the marrow. However, I also co-develop my source base under Win32 all these years under, of course CodeWarrior. So, to be clear, I've been developing cross-platform cores for both platforms under CodeWarrior for years now (using the Mac OS IDE--I'd rather quit software than use an IDE in the Windows environment with Windows "standards"). It's only been in this last year that Xcode itself (ie, not tools, such as CHUD) is finally about to pass CodeWarrior overall.
I'm disappointed with this article because it's basically just rah-rah-rah (as in cheerleading) and speaks little to a small company cross platform dev (like me). In other words, it's great that company the size of Blizzard has enough devs to have Windows teams, Mac OS team, and cross-platform teams (such that each team uses a native IDE and compiler) but smaller companies don't have that kind of firepower. In other words, as a dev who targets Win32 and Mac OS, I don't have the time to use Xcode for Mac OS and VisualStudio for Win32. Because it's meant to be PR, I won't harp on how the article doesn't contain a shed of detail (like one poster here commented, they say they use the Xcode tools, not Xcode itself).
On that note, CodeWarrior still is impressive across the board for *both* Win32 and Mac OS projects. The time and effort they've put into the size and flexibility of the various pref panes and project item control has paid off; it's provided unmatched project control and continues to reign superior (disclaimer: I've yet to give Xcode 1.5 a close look).
My biggest reason for not jumping to Xcode (from CodeWarrior) is that I'd still have to build my projects for Win32 under CodeWarrior after switching to Xcode. Bottom line is that now I'd be juggling two project sets with no significant gain from the switch to Xcode. My decision to switch to Xcode will be based on two factors: what Xcode 2 brings to the table and if Metrowerks releases an entirely new version of CodeWarrior (ie, CW Pro 10). If the latter does not happen by the time Xcode 2 is released (mid 2005?), CodeWarrior's Mac OS support will simply be just too out of date to run with.
G-Force music visualization
For a true cross-platform build system, take a look at Scons, Subversion and Data Debugger - I've used all of those on Windows (except DDD), Mac, Linux and FreeBSD - and they're fantastic.
When I tried using XCode, I found it seriously unfriendly - the UI is bizzare and makes no logical sense. I ended up trying to use XCode simply for editing code, before getting frustrated and using Emacs to edit and the command line to build.
I personally know of several software engineers at Blizzard and the developer tool of choice is and has been CodeWarrior for the development of games like the Diablo, Warcraft, and Starcraft series. This story reaks of a marketing department partnership trying to generate news for both camps but the legitimacy of the claims on any significant level is questionable at best.
We don't think we are missing out on much at all. I'm sorry but it is not at all likely that there will ever be a MAC version of Rhino. We do our software development in Microsoft Developer Studio. There is no MAC based equivalent for this product and it's resources. This is the first problem. Secondly, it is nearly impossible to find MAC programmers with the PhD level math skills needed for this kind of programming at any price. Thirdly, there are not enough potential sales of a MAC based product to keep it affordable. At present projections, assuming we could find the programmers and they could co-develop a product similar enough to the Windows based product to make it viable, each copy would have to be priced over $20,000 per seat. At that price, a $1,000 Windows computer running Windows based Rhino makes a lot more sense. Don't you think?
Reply to Point #1
Xcode and Codewarrior
Reply to point #2
Need I mention products like Mathworks [Matlab] and Wolfram [Mathematica] ?
Our department, the Naval Architecture & Marine Engineering department graduates several PhDs specializing in surfacing math, several of whom I have worked with. They eventually get hired into the automotive and marine industries. Several of them now work for companies like Dassault [Catia], EAI (now Unigraphics), Imageware Surfacer (now Unigraphics) all doing work on CAD and advanced surfacing, based on their PhD work. PhD's with programming knowledge are platform agnostic. Equations and algorithms that work on a Windows PC can be ported to a Mac, or any other platform for that matter.
I don't believe that any programmer can't pick up a Mac OSX development environment, especially when academic institutions teach on platform neutral environments. C, C++, OpenGL, Java, ...etc.
Reply to point #3
Apparently, companies like Alias [Maya], NewTek [Lightwave], Microsoft [Office], Mathworks [Matlab], Adobe....don't concur with your hypothesis. Nor do they charge 20 time more per seat for their Mac OSX ports.
The $20,000 per seat cost using the percentage of total sales of PC vs Macs is clearly a red herring. A much better example would be the fact that Alias' sales of Maya make up over %25 of their total revenue stream, even though Macs sales are less than 5% of total computer sales. The reason for Maya's success on Mac OSX, as well as other similar software, is because Macs are used in the computer graphics, video, scientific and engineering community. Applications that cater to 3D modeling, 2D imaging, video are used to a greater proportion on Macs than that found in the Windows community. Hence, sales of the Mac OSX Rhino 3D port would not be 19 to 1 (Windows vs Macs), a more realistic ratio would be 3 to 1 ( Windows vs Macs, based on the Alias Maya example).
The question is would McNeel & Associates want to keep trying to growing in just a PC market, or experience the potential of increasing sales (as Alias did when they made their Mac OSX port) another 30% - 25% ?