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.'"

Comments

Mac, not Linux.

[SKorvus]

djabbour writes "Blizzard Entertainment develops its games simultaneously on the Windows and Linux platforms."

While the Slashdot community may have largely embraced the Mac platform since the release of the BSD/Mach based OS X, Mac != Linux.

Blizzard has had strong support for the Mac platform since its beginning; and it's nice to see that the Mac forms an integral part of their development process.

Xcode vs. CodeWarrior -- a small guy's perspective

[andy55]

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.