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Alternative Development Systems for the Mac

Posted by Hemos on from the alternative-development-lifestyles dept.

Carlos Camacho writes "Programmers new to the Mac platform, as well as newbie Mac coders often ask (or complain) about available development tools. Most often, Apple's Xcode is recommended since it is free, and a pretty slick package. For cross-platform work, Metrowerks CodeWarrior series has been with us since the early PowerPC days, and is very flexible in its support for multi-platforms. But with if you want to work in a language other than Objective-C,C, C++ or Java? Or learn an entirely new language? How does the Macintosh fare? iDevGames, a site devoted to Mac game developers, has put together a list of "alternative" development tools for Mac OS X. A good number of the tools listed are either free, or low-cost. So, if you're interested in playing around with Lua, Ruby, something similar to HyperCard, or one of the many BASICs, check out "Alternative Development Systems for the Mac.""

54 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. What about Mono? by Kryptkrwlr_XTC · · Score: 4, Informative

    Before you flame me as a troll, the Mono Project does have a Framework installer for OS X. so you can develop under Mono and have a app run on a Mac.

    1. Re:What about Mono? by OmniVector · · Score: 5, Interesting

      the performance isn't there. nor is the reason. why bother with C#/Cocoa# when you can use java/Cocoa and it's shipped with every mac already, and it has better performance (hotspot is way better than mono's vm right now). not to mention the dev tools for java in os x are about a million times better than anything for C#. (intellij, eclipse, xcode...)

      --
      - tristan
    2. Re:What about Mono? by tod_miller · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Mod up parent +5 Sane

      Java and Eclipse for application development under Mac. Even Java3D and many other lovely libraries, plus the L&F is full Mac, and check out Suns guide to macifying a java app.

      What, you wanted a drum roll?

      --
      #hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
    3. Re:What about Mono? by ytsejam-ppc · · Score: 2, Interesting

      That's an easy answer to this question. What if you do c# development for a living and you don't want to waste any of your aging brain cells trying to learn a completely new framework just so you can tinker around on your shiny new mac.

  2. Runtime Revolution? by torpor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Has anyone ever used Runtime Revolution? I remember this system in the days before Java, and its quite surprising that its still around .. because I've never heard of or seen anyone ever use it to write an application ..

    Is this just because its mostly a business-logic style app development environment, or have I just not been paying enough attention to 'strings somerunrev.exe'?

    (Anyone remember Vibe?)

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
    1. Re:Runtime Revolution? by DLWormwood · · Score: 2, Informative
      Has anyone ever used Runtime Revolution?

      I don't know about "heavy weight" apps, but the commercial remake of the old HyperCard stack "If Monks Had Macs..." was made using RunRev...

      I only found out about this last week, but it was re-released late last year. I'm going to be giving a slightly used copy as a Xmas present this year...

      --
      Those who complain about affect & effect on /. should be disemvoweled
    2. Re:Runtime Revolution? by DLWormwood · · Score: 2, Informative
      Hmm... the weblink failed to show up in the post...

      If Monk Had Macs... by RiverText

      --
      Those who complain about affect & effect on /. should be disemvoweled
    3. Re:Runtime Revolution? by chippcom · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yep, I use it all the time. We've built a number of pretty cool apps with it, including a Content Management System, a Version Control System and more.

      You can see some of these at http://www.altuit.com/ or check out: http://www.altuit.com/webs/altuit2/RunRev/ for more details on RunRev...

  3. Flash and Director by xanderwilson · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm surprised Flash and Director didn't make the list. Some of those tools I've never heard of and I did a pretty long search for a crossplatform game development tool not too long ago, when I decided RealBASIC wasn't going to cut it for me.

    Alex.

    1. Re:Flash and Director by DLWormwood · · Score: 3, Insightful
      I'm surprised Flash and Director didn't make the list.

      The list was probably compiled to favor the cheap and obscure verses the expensive and well known. iDevGames is now in the judging stage of an annual contest where amateur developers make freeware Mac games. The list was probably compiled based on feedback from the developers while this year's contest was being put together.

      --
      Those who complain about affect & effect on /. should be disemvoweled
    2. Re:Flash and Director by danigiri · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I have several multimedia CD-ROMs under development in Director. I have done at least a dozen of them and they are usually fairly well-paid projects (v.s. low-pay and hassle-full interactive websites).

      Flash is all the rage lately, specially on the "rich" front-end app Web environment. Funny thing, MM in their greedy upgrade-cycle frenzy is making exactly the same mistakes that plagued Director in its time. Namely: feature bloat, general inconsistency, dramatic scripting syntax and model changes, legacy burdens, NIH syndrome, feature creep, etc.

      Sad, the Flash community is swallowing it all in their enthusiasm.

    3. Re:Flash and Director by ThousandStars · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Sad, the Flash community is swallowing it all in their enthusiasm.

      Sadly, I find Flash so irritating, both in for creating full websites and its use for advertisements, that I uninstalled the plug-in. Any website that relies on Flash for critical functionality will lose me as a viewer or customer. If websites use Flash, they should also provide a simplified HTML version for the rest of us.

    4. Re:Flash and Director by network23 · · Score: 3, Funny

      Sadly, I find Flash so irritating, both in for creating full websites and its use for advertisements, that I uninstalled the plug-in.

      Jeez. But you forgot to tell us how good Ogg is.

    5. Re:Flash and Director by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Sadly, I find Flash so irritating, both in for creating full websites..."

      I couldn't agree more. Its way too heavy for simple browsing.

      "...and its use for advertisements..."

      No worse than GIFs, really (if you actually like advertising of any kind).

      "...that I uninstalled the plug-in. Any website that relies on Flash for critical functionality will lose me as a viewer or customer."

      Ignoring it's misuse in splash screens and building entire sites (which is the user's fault, not the software's), there's a lot of interesting entertainment out there which uses Flash. Frankly, Homestar Runner would be rather dull as a static ASCII page...(StrongMad to Marzipan: "I can't read you!")

      "If websites use Flash, they should also provide a simplified HTML version for the rest of us."

      And if they have an IE-optimized page they should also provide a strict HTML 4.0 standard version for real browsers :). Actually, I agree with you in principle: a site's content should, ideally, be available with a minimum of plug-ins, unless the content specifically requires a plug-in. However this is one of those concepts, along with optimizing JPEGs, that seems to have been lost in the "me-too" frenzy...

      Besides, Flash is nowhere near as annoying as frames. Why do web designers feel the need to add their own navigation buttons, when there are already perfectly good ones built into the browser? "Back" isn't back enough?!?

  4. You missed eclipse ! by compactable · · Score: 4, Informative
    Geez. The best IDE I've ever used, providing SWT libs for apple ... how is this not there?

    A million different cheez-o basic versions listed, but they forgot eclipse ...

    1. Re:You missed eclipse ! by compactable · · Score: 2, Informative
      list they gave looked pretty game-oriented

      Agreed that the list is skewed towards game programming, and java isn't the place to be for bleeding edge games, however there is a java games community, and more specifically an eclipse games community.

      Note - I am not a games programmer, however given some of the solutions listed ( I mean, I used to love chipmunk basic but I'm not going to use it these days ) I thought eclipse should have been pointed to. Eclipse on mac doesn't seem to be as big as eclipse on linux / windows ... I was guessing this was the cause of the overlook (or maybe they hate java (-; )

  5. RealBasic by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 5, Informative

    RealBasic, IMO, is the best cross-platform RAD tool in existence today. Not that there is a ton of competition...

    It's a somewhat Java-like Basic syntax, completely object-oriented. It has the capability to use ODBC (on all platforms that support it), native widgets, many types of network sockets, etc. An install on every platform consists of copying a SINGLE file, one .exe file on Windows, one .app bundle on MacOS X... no DLLs whatsoever. That's a huge plus for me. A drawback is that it relies on Quicktime to present some media formats, such as PDF, and most Windows machines don't have Quicktime installed.

    On, the other drawback. The developers and marketers of RealBasic have their head in the sand and have NO CLUE what they are working with. With about 1 minor revision and a decent-sized advertising campaign, these guys could conquer and destroy Microsoft VisualBasic. RealBasic does everything VisualBasic does but cross-platform and without reliance on numerous .dll files with version conflicts. Instead, they're advertising it as some stupid game development tool, wasting their time maintaining a "sprite surface" object and an entire 3D framework based on, get this, Quesa, which is in turn based on QD3D... two obsolete technologies layered atop each other. Let me save you some time: RealBasic SUCKS for game development. It has no native support for OpenGL or any decent sound libraries.

    Since this is Slashdot, I'll also say that RealBasic includes very very skeletal Linux support, but I think Redhat only. I could be wrong, I don't use Linux.

    Pretty much the only competition is Macromedia Director and Runtime Revolution... both of those produce alien-looking not-quite-native interfaces. (Although at least Director is good for game development.)

    http://realbasichelp.com/ is the best forum on the web for RealBasic issues and questions.

    --
    Comment of the year
    1. Re:RealBasic by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 3, Informative

      Oh, I and I guess I should link to the actual website of the product, sorry. :)

      http://realbasic.com/ RealBasic's Homepage. You can download a free trial, I recommend giving it a try.

      --
      Comment of the year
    2. Re:RealBasic by compactable · · Score: 3, Funny
      Let me save you some time: RealBasic SUCKS for game development

      ... shame the article was about platforms for game development (-;

      Agreed however if your market is for basic-style apps (where Visual Basic is thrown in today), real basic looks quite polished (although I didn't see anything regardsing Linux ...).

    3. Re:RealBasic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      REALbasic has excellent Linux support for Red Hat, SuSE and just about any other version of Linux provided that GTK 2.0 or later and a few other libraries are installed.

      As for game support, I've seen several games written with REALbasic and they look pretty good. Why does REALbasic include game support? Probably because that's how a lot of people get into programming. They start by writing games. Quesa is a platform-independent 3D API. It uses OpenGL underneath on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. It only uses QuickDraw3D on Classic Mac OS.

      Regarding Visual Basic, one of the big problems for any company selling software into the Windows market is getting above the noise. It's a big market and that's attractive but that's also a negative. And throwing lots of money at a problem is not always be best solution.

    4. Re:RealBasic by niteice · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Problem is...people who have learned MS's flavor of Basic are going to have trouble using RealBasic (at least last time I tried, OS8-era).

      --
      ROMANES EUNT DOMUS
    5. Re:RealBasic by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, like I said, I was trying to make a simple MUD client to test it out. This involves opening a socket and recieving text into one field, and sending text to another field. (Technically, it's the telnet protocol, but when you're just doing it quick-and-dirty you can ignore the protocol and just send/recieve text.) This is the kind of thing I could be able to piece together with a few code samples and maybe two, three hours but I couldn't get it at all.

      In RealBasic, it doesn't take long to find a timer or thread class and use that to manage your sockets. I couldn't find anything like that in Runtime Revolution after a couple hours of looking. Plus I didn't really understand how sockets worked in the language, and I couldn't find an example or tutorial in the help.

      Re: Platform issues. Try this in MacOS. Open a multiline text field and fill it full of text. Position the caret at the top of the field and hit the down arrow key. When you get to the bottom line, Windows will simply "beep" at you, but MacOS will move the caret to the far right of that line. (This may or may not be what was wrong with the Runtime Revolution fields; it's been a long time since I worked with it; but this is a mistake that is commonly made on cross-platform projects that don't use native widgets but just widgets that look like native widgets. Last I tried Firefox, it had the same problem.) I'm not saying that one behavior is better than the other, I'm just saying that Mac users expect the caret to go to the end of the text and PC users expect it to stay where it is.

      --
      Comment of the year
  6. what about xul? by biggyfries · · Score: 2, Interesting

    xul is cross platform. Granted, you need to install a "reader" for it (mozilla, gecko, firefox, etc), but you need to for some other languages too (flash, shockwave, the different C's, etc). Plus, xul accepts javascript and html, so if someone knows those, then the can build upon their skills.

  7. Lisps for the Macintosh by jaoswald · · Score: 4, Informative

    There are a few Common Lisp implementations as well

    Open Source:

    Open MCL
    SBCL

    Commercial:

    Macintosh Common Lisp
    Allegro Common Lisp
    Xanalys Lispworks

    1. Re:Lisps for the Macintosh by Wolfkin · · Score: 2, Informative

      I use CMUCL, OpenMCL, and SBCL on my Mac. The only reason I'm usin CMUCL on it, though, is that most of my development is for a Linux server, and CMUCL is the target CL on that server.

      --
      Property law should use #'EQ, not #'EQUAL.
  8. Engage Tin Foil Compiler by fracai · · Score: 2, Funny

    I predict that in a few years time we'll learn that xCode secretly embeds spy-code to harvest key logs and other user data. This secret code will be activated April 1st in the year 2006 and upload all collected data to Apple's iTunes division. The harvested data will allow Apple to create THE killer song for your iPod, which by then will interact directly with you brain. This song will control you and bend your listening ways to the financial gain of Apple. 7 days later Bungie will buy Microsoft and release a version of Windows that is really amazing, but doesn't let you finish any documents or loading of web pages. Finally, Bill Gates will reveal himself as demon spawn from Bizaro world come to our world to spread flowers. Having gained control of the world's iPod listening consumers, Apple will return to the alternate dimension to deploy their iTunes Kenny G Music Store. Unfortunately, it's overrated, cliched, and lacking in table manners.

    You have been warned.

    --
    -- i am jack's amusing sig file
    1. Re:Engage Tin Foil Compiler by Pope · · Score: 5, Funny
      7 days later Bungie will buy Microsoft and release a version of Windows that is really amazing, but doesn't let you finish any documents or loading of web pages.

      Oh, it'll allow you to do both, but only at specified save points.

      --
      It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
  9. API dependencies by saddino · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But with if you want to work in a language other than Objective-C,C, C++ or Java?

    The only "gotcha" about programming for the Mac outside these languages is that access to native APIs (Core Foundation, Quartz, QuickTime, etc.) becomes dependent on the tool maker providing wrappers.

    So, while using other tools for RAD, educational or hobbying purposes might be possible; it's easy to miss out on some of the most intriguing and interesting (IMHO) programming possibilites for the Mac.

    Of course, if you're just interested in programming on the Mac as opposed to for the Mac, then this isn't an issue.

  10. PyGame by quamaretto · · Score: 4, Informative

    I appreciate the mention of PyGame, as Python is presently my language of choice for fiddling around. I have recently started using Python and I really enjoy it, and it's odd to see Python based solutions left out of discussions where they are relevant.

    It's almost like there are a large group of people who take offense at the mention of Python...

    --
    *is run over by rotten tomatoes*
    1. Re:PyGame by macrealist · · Score: 2, Informative

      It's almost like there are a large group of people who take offense at the mention of Python...

      It is an interpreted language, and in general, interpreted languages don't get much respect. In addition, Python users are often as fanatical as mac users, and end up pushing python into inappropriate uses. A fairly senior manager at my work got hooked on python, and is now trying to use it for embedded real-time applications. He is not a programmer, and tries to use python as a solution to every problem. Now, all the software engineers cringe when python is mentioned. Not python's fault, but now we all take offense at its mention.

      --
      I am living proof of the Peter Principle
    2. Re:PyGame by dJOEK · · Score: 2, Funny

      In addition, Python users are often as fanatical as mac users, and end up pushing python into inappropriate uses

      Inappropriate uses .. .such as, oh, say, Google? ;-)

      --
      Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
  11. What about Fortran? by tyrione · · Score: 2, Informative

    With GCC4.0 the latest Fortran for Mechanical Engineers and other disciplines with a need for numerical analysis and FEM will have this available.

    I wonder do languages like SELF or Ada or Eiffel ever get notice like they once did?

    1. Re:What about Fortran? by javaxman · · Score: 2, Interesting
      First, let me just say "yuck!", because I've had few less enjoyable experiences than trying to figure out what is wrong with someone's fortran code. Fortran IO functions must die. Just a personal preference, I understand plenty of people like Fortran for whatever reason, and it will always be used to write little, fast, hard to maintain programs with bad I/O routines.

      Second, we've successfully recompiled scads of old ( and not-so-old ) fortran code for OS X already. I guess the programs we had didn't need to much in terms of special support- we used g77. It's good to hear GCC is ( of course ) keeping up with the times.

      A quick google search and a peak at the ADC website and it does look like GCC and the Macintosh are being used by the HPC folks. Altivec libraries available and everything, pretty much like you'd hope for, if FORTRAN is your bag.

    2. Re:What about Fortran? by javaxman · · Score: 4, Insightful
      Hmm. I used to be bilingual in Fortran. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out someone elses code. Most of the time the problem is with the programmer not the compiler.

      I have seen C and VB and even Pascal that is tough to understand. I have also seen Fortran that was well documented and easy to follow.

      It's definitely true that it is quite possible to write well-commented and easy-to-understand code using Fortran.

      The vast majority of Fortran I've seen, however, does not fall into this category. Some old-school optimization tricks, like variable reuse, are partly to blame for the poor readability, as is poor programming ( usually done by engineers, not programmers ). In my experience, most folks writing Fortran programs are scientists and engineers, not programmers, and they approach the problem as if they're writing some little function that will only ever be written once, and never modified. They get it to compile and move on to some "real work". If there's some edge case where the program errors out, users learn by trial and error to avoid that case. User interaction is an afterthought. This is mostly the programmer's fault, although I notice you didn't touch my statement about Fortran I/O routines being uh, not the easiest to use.

      Still, ANY language with a "GOTO" construct and unclear if-branching is going to be hard to read. Fortran has both. Not to mention limited symbol length and non-sequential line numbering. It actually takes a great deal of care to create a readable Fortran program, and they are, as a result, rare.

      Not to start a flamewar about Fortran, though, it definitely has it's uses, and it is possible to write a reasonably readable Fortran program, but... the language not only doesn't help you do so, it actually includes some limitations and conventions which make it difficult.

      But support on OS X? Shoot, Fortran support on OS X rocks! It's frickin' Fortran-lover heaven. You even get Altivec calls from Fortran. All you lack is a decent way to do I/O ;-)

    3. Re:What about Fortran? by beliavsky · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Your knowledge of Fortran is based on the outdated Fortran 77 standard. Since then, there have been three standards, Fortran 90, 95, and recently 2003. Please consult a Fortran tutorial at http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Language s/Fortran/Tutorials/Fortran_90_and_95/ before spreading misinformation in the future. About ten Fortran 95 compilers exist -- see http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Language s/Fortran/Compilers/ .

      To answer your specific assertions: Fortran and most other languages have goto, but since it now has a full set of control structures, they are rarely needed. In F90 variables have names up to 31 characters long.

      Fortran I/O is SUPERIOR to what I've seen in other languages. You can read or write a vector of integers and reals with just

      read (*,*) ivec(1:4),xvec(1:10)
      write (*,"(4i6,10f10.4)") ivec(1:4),xvec(1:10)

      It would take multiple loops to do this in Java, C, or C++.

      You can think of modern Fortran as a fast, compiled, ISO-standardized Matlab (it has array operations).

    4. Re:What about Fortran? by beliavsky · · Score: 2, Informative

      Besides gfortran, which is part of GCC, there is also the free g95, with compiler binaries for Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows -- see http://www.g95.org/ . G95 currently supports almost all of Fortran 95, unlike gfortran. Absoft sells their own Fortran 95 compiler for Mac OS X, in addition to IBM's -- see http://www.absoft.com/ . NAG has also has an F95 compiler -- see http://lists.apple.com/archives/scitech/2002/Jul/m sg00076.html .

    5. Re:What about Fortran? by javaxman · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Your knowledge of Fortran is based on the outdated Fortran 77 standard. Since then, there have been three standards, Fortran 90, 95, and recently 2003. Please consult a Fortran tutorial at http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Language s/Fortran/Tutorials/Fortran_90_and_95/ before spreading misinformation in the future. About ten Fortran 95 compilers exist -- see http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Programming/Language s/Fortran/Compilers/

      It's definitely true the most of the Fortran I've had to work with has been Fortran77 code- that's just the era when it was written. Fortran 90 I do know a bit about and it is fundamentally improved.

      Ok, so to bring this back to the ( now very old ) actual topic... uh, I don't suppose there is a Fortran 95-compliant compiler for OS X? Huh, I don't see one. Are there any that are freely available for development use on *any* platform? I only found one that was even free for personal evaluation in that list... Not to take away from your point, but looking at the list in the link you provided, I'm guessing that even today, _most_ Fortran is likely to be to be of the Fortran77 variety.

      read (*,*) ivec(1:4),xvec(1:10)
      write (*,"(4i6,10f10.4)") ivec(1:4),xvec(1:10)

      Nice example of FortranI/O.
      But, um, how do you read a vector of integers when you don't know the length of the vector, for example?

      Anyway, I'm *really* not here to bag on Fortran, if it's your thing, great. It's not my thing, I'd much rather write Objective-C code, or C for that matter. If you want to do future generations of programmers a favor, you'll write your new code in C- the younger guys don't know from Fortran. Just my humble opinion.

  12. No by ravenspear · · Score: 2, Funny

    It costs $700. I have to eat you know.

    1. Re:No by wirelessbuzzers · · Score: 4, Funny

      I have to eat you know.

      You misspelled "now."

      --
      I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
  13. Squeak! by Axello · · Score: 5, Informative

    Squeak is the modern Smalltalk implementation. It supports opengl, quicktime, widgets, networking etc. It is cross platform and runs on Windoze, Linux, other unices, Mac OS X, PDAs etc. http://www.squeak.org/

  14. Re:Feedback From Developers by DLWormwood · · Score: 4, Informative
    And then they stopped selling it less than a year after its original release IIRC. I don't think anybody but Ambrosia ever developed anything with it and they even pulled their game because it just didn't work right.

    I just check Ambroisa's site and web boards, and they appear to still sell both the engine and the standalone campaign. They just don't appear on the "recent release" pages; you must explictly look for it on the Arcade and Utility pages.

    That said, there are a few problems with Coldstone, however...

    1. Beenox Studios has gone on to "bigger and better things" and are now mostly focused on doing ports of commercials games, leaving Andrew and company in the lurch. Ambrosia is said to be doing the update work themselves, if I'm understanding the discussion on the boards right.
    2. The development IDE was written in REALbasic, IIRC. And to get stability for Panther and Tiger, they are going to have to rebuild it using a more modern release of it. This is going to lead to a new QA testing cycle, since RB is infamous for breaking things with each update.
    3. Ambrosia has prioritized on getting a shareware version of WireTap out the door, making it a separate product from Snapz Pro. There's a "sticky" post in the Coldstone forum mentioning that the game tool has been "backburnered" as a result.
    --
    Those who complain about affect & effect on /. should be disemvoweled
  15. SuperCard by Swedentom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd recommend SuperCard. When Apple abandoned HyperCard, they left a big void. SuperCard is OS X native and has excellent HC compatibility. Of course, it's far from a HC clone, as it it has all the things you'd expect from a development environment these days.

    SC allows you to build standalone applications playing movies with QuickTime, displaying graphics with alpha channels, running shell commands and AppleScripts, etc...

    I also personally use Runtime Revolution, and it's also good, and cross-platform. However, for Mac-only development, SuperCard definitely has my vote. It uses true Aqua GUI controls, and behaves like you expect Mac apps to do.

    Here's a few Mac apps I develop with SuperCard: http://www.lightheadsw.com/

    --
    Sig Nature
  16. (1) no problem (2) why?? by javaxman · · Score: 4, Informative
    But with if you want to work in a language other than Objective-C,C, C++ or Java?

    (1) No problem.
    XCode's build system is extremely flexible. You can have a custom script or binary run instead of the more standard targets. Just make a new project of "Empty Project" type, add a build target ( Project/New Target ) and pick either "external target" or "Shell Script Target" as appropriate. It'd be hard for it to be a lot easier without being language/tool specific, like the 'canned' target types ( of which there are already quite a few ).

    (2)You want to use something that's not the most developer-friendly language ever created ( Objective-C ), the most commonly used language ever created ( C ), the most commonly used in commercial products OO language ( C++ ) nor the best mulitplatform language ever ( Java ) ?? What's your reasoning there?

    I understand that there are reasons for using "none of the above" when writing code for OS X, like say, you have a big group of Fortran programs that you don't have time or need to rewrite, or you just rock at Python and don't have time to learn something else, or know you can do what you want in Pearl... but if you're developing a completely new codebase, with a full GUI-based app as your goal?
    Learn Objective-C. Learn Cocoa. You'll be glad you did.

    1. Re:(1) no problem (2) why?? by wirelessbuzzers · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You want to use something that's not the most developer-friendly language ever created ( Objective-C ), the most commonly used language ever created ( C ), the most commonly used in commercial products OO language ( C++ ) nor the best mulitplatform language ever ( Java ) ?? What's your reasoning there?

      Objective-C is slow, it eats memory, and its syntax is very verbose. Most languages don't have 120-some character method names. And for all that, it's still unsafe, and has very little in the way of static type-checking, and no garbage collector (a refcounter where you have to twiddle references a lot doesn't count). I would not call it "the most developer-friendly language every created." I'd much rather code in Python or O'Caml.

      C is not a good choice for anything but the core of most games, as it is too developer-unfriendly and lacks in features (like OO, anonymous functions, garbage collection...). While excellent for low-level code, it's not really in the running for high-level.

      C++ is a good language for games, but many people would rather have something higher-level. It's unsafe, but many people will overlook.

      Java is slow and verbose, and therefore painful for game development.

      Maybe they want to code in Python?

      --
      I hereby place the above post in the public domain.
    2. Re:(1) no problem (2) why?? by javaxman · · Score: 5, Insightful
      I don't know why I even bother, but it beats working...

      Objective-C is slow, it eats memory, and its syntax is very verbose. Most languages don't have 120-some character method names. And for all that, it's still unsafe, and has very little in the way of static type-checking, and no garbage collector (a refcounter where you have to twiddle references a lot doesn't count). I would not call it "the most developer-friendly language every created." I'd much rather code in Python or O'Caml.

      You want fast and a garbage collector?? Objective-C is slow? Um... not terribly. Large memory footprint? Not unless you're forgetting to deallocate objects, or just have a bad design. 120-some-character method names? Not typically, and verbose method names are actually good, if occasionally overdone. Yea, it's unsafe, it's a superset of C, of course it's unsafe. You really think Objective-C is less memory-hungry than Python or O'Caml? Interesting... I'd like to see your benchmarks there. It's clear we have different ideas of what makes a language developer-friendly. Access to C routines makes Objective-C developer-friendly in my book.

      C is not a good choice for anything but the core of most games, as it is too developer-unfriendly and lacks in features (like OO, anonymous functions, garbage collection...). While excellent for low-level code, it's not really in the running for high-level.

      C is great for the core of most calculation routines of any type. Which is how it is often used in the context of an Objective-C program. You don't always need high-level.

      C++ is a good language for games, but many people would rather have something higher-level. It's unsafe, but many people will overlook.

      Now you're making me wonder how many Python or O'Caml games there are out there. I guess there must be a few... any commercial ones? C++ when written correctly is awfully high-level, no? I can't belive you'd complain about Objective-C syntax and not C++ syntax...

      Java is slow and verbose, and therefore painful for game development.

      First, slow compared to what? Link me up with that Java/Python benchmark comparison. No, really. Something tells me you might just be making this stuff up, repeating something you read somewhere or something. Java used to be slow. Starting up a JVM can be slow. Some Swing drawing routines on some platforms can be slow. I'm also wondering, huh, do you think of programming in terms of anything besides games? Again, verbose in a programming language == readable == very good.

      Maybe they want to code in Python?

      Power to you. XCode documentation even has pointers as to how to set up a project for Python. Is Python sytax really less verbose than Objective-C? Is it really faster? Does it really have better, more complete libraries? Is there really a reason other than "I want to", which- don't get me wrong - I think is great reason... just maybe not one you can sell to the other folks working on your project, if you get my drift. Really, yea, Python is cool, but... why not Objective-C, again?

    3. Re:(1) no problem (2) why?? by wirelessbuzzers · · Score: 2, Informative

      You want fast and a garbage collector??

      Yes.

      Objective-C is slow? Um... not terribly. Large memory footprint? Not unless you're forgetting to deallocate objects, or just have a bad design.

      Obj-C boxes are huge. Method calls are heavily indirected. All this makes for more dynamism, but I stand by my claim that Python beats it, and that Objective-C beats it.

      120-some-character method names? Not typically, and verbose method names are actually good, if occasionally overdone. Yea, it's unsafe, it's a superset of C, of course it's unsafe. You really think Objective-C is less memory-hungry than Python or O'Caml? Interesting... I'd like to see your benchmarks there.

      CPU
      Memory
      LOC

      OK, so they're toy problems, all benchmarks are lies, etc. But do you see why Obj-Caml is attractive?

      It's clear we have different ideas of what makes a language developer-friendly. Access to C routines makes Objective-C developer-friendly in my book.

      True. But mixing C and Objective-C code can be painful, even though they're compatible.

      C is great for the core of most calculation routines of any type. Which is how it is often used in the context of an Objective-C program. You don't always need high-level.

      Agreed. Which is why most high-level languages have a decent FFI.

      Now you're making me wonder how many Python or O'Caml games there are out there. I guess there must be a few... any commercial ones? C++ when written correctly is awfully high-level, no? I can't belive you'd complain about Objective-C syntax and not C++ syntax...

      Not very many. I don't keep track of commercial ones and can google as fast as you can. Plenty of compilers (eg Felix) are written in O'Caml, as well as some math stuff (FFTW). I don't think Caml is good for games though. Now, there is this Python gaming kit which is supposed to be pretty good, but I don't know what games are written in it. Most $n million productions are C++ and C, as you've said, but that's because it has to be fast.

      I like Objective-C syntax for high-level code, because it's clean and descriptive, but for small, simple routines it's encumbering. C++ syntax is bitchy and complicated, but it's reasonably concise.

      First, slow compared to what? Link me up with that Java/Python benchmark comparison.

      Python is slower, but it's designed to have a C core for stuff that has to be fast. It has a very clean FFI, whereas Java has none.

      No, really. Something tells me you might just be making this stuff up, repeating something you read somewhere or something. Java used to be slow. Starting up a JVM can be slow. Some Swing drawing routines on some platforms can be slow. I'm also wondering, huh, do you think of programming in terms of anything besides games?

      Yes, I think about it mostly in terms of real applications, hence my inability to name commercial games written in any of these

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  17. Ada for the Mac by Ada95 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Mac software can de developed in Ada 95 using the GNAT Ada 95 front end for GCC. A description is available at http://www.macada.org/

  18. Go on, rate me troll. by kerobaros · · Score: 3, Insightful
    ...Metrowerks CodeWarrior series has been with us since the early PowerPC days...

    Uh, I distinctly remember using CodeWarrior on my old Quadras, which were all 68k machines. I never really was a fan of Apple's MPW IDE, so yeah.
    Just thought I'd point that out. Also, Mac System 7.5.5 forever and such.

  19. BlitzMax and Extreme??? by spir0 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    BlitzMax (the mac version of blitzbasic, but 2d) does not seem to exist yet. rumours date back to 2002, but there is no mention of it on BlitzBasic's product pages.

    Extreme Basic is a work in progress that seems like it's going to be released for PC and Mac. However, the commands are different for mac and pc, so it's not going to be cross platform -- unforgivable in my eye.

    Seeing as they don't exist, should they even be on this list?

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    The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
  20. I'm trouble by the use of gcc as the default... by SIGFPE · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...compiler on Macs as it's not a great compiler on x86. Here's a test I did recently where MSVC can produce code that can easily be about 100 times faster than gcc. So I'd be interested to see what happens with the same code on Macs. I have gcc but I don't have codewarrior. So if someone could run that test for me and post the results I'd be interested.

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    1. Re:I'm trouble by the use of gcc as the default... by HuguesT · · Score: 2, Informative

      The version of GCC that comes with macs is optimized by Apple. Of course the changes are open-source but they have not been integrated in the main branch of GCC yet.

      In my experience Apple's GCC optimizes better on Macs than the IBM compiler for PowerPC CPUS.

  21. realbasic? by hpavc · · Score: 4, Informative

    Realbasic is pretty good, the windows+linux+mac+osx build is nice.

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  22. Not C++ by hummassa · · Score: 2, Interesting
    I have said and repeat: C++ is not C.

    Your examples, no loop:
    vector<int> v;
    copy(istream_iterator<int>(cin), istream_iterator<int>(), inserter(v, v.begin()));
    copy(v.begin(), v.end(), ostream_iterator<int>(cout));
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  23. Emacs for OSX by omnipotus · · Score: 3, Informative

    There is a beautiful port of Emacs to Carbon with a Aqua interface. Emacs of course has modes to handle so many programming language dialects that it makes a great tool for developing on OS X. There have been changes made to the main trunk of the Emacs project so that you can compile your own after checking out the official cvs repository, or you can google yourself up a binary.

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    "You can't dissect him, predict him, which of course means he's not a lunatic at all."