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Intel Ports Developer Tools to Mac OS X
turnitover writes "According to eWEEK, "Intel Corp. will port its software developer tools to Mac OS X and will ship its first beta later this year, the chip maker told developers on Tuesday at its first-ever session on Mac OS X at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco." This, as Apple is working on its first Intel-based Macs, due sometime in 2006. Will the promise of the same feature set and the same tools (for Windows, Mac and Linux) mean the future of cross-platform development is here?"
Wow, who'd have expected something like this?
If you forget about the future, the future will forget about you.
This was a part of NextStep/OpenStep from way back. The application could have multiple binaries. So it would not be common to see a single app bundle that would run on OpenStep 68K, OpenStep x86, and OpenStep for Win32. Even the original Rhapsody was going to be like this supporting Rhapsody PPC, Rhapsody x86, Rhapsody on Win32.
What do you know I wrote a novel
Apple will still be using GCC.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
So it doesn't compile ObjC-Cocoa apps.... And Apple is abandoning the Classic environment available on the x86 platform...
And there's no IOKit....
So what's this going to compile? Core Foundation apps and Carbon apps without any vector code?
Ummmm. Well, it's a start.
Yes it's crossplatform alright if the compiler in question works for x86, x86 and you guessed it: x86.
What's making the porting hard in case of different software ecologies is not the compiler, cause gcc is really crossplatform and ubiquitous for years now. It's all those OS and otherwise libraries (gtk vs. cocoa vs. GDI) which do it. And I don't see Intel selling any crossplatform versions of those
Before anyone says it, this won't replace GCC on XCode. Intel's compiler is expensive and is not 100% compatible with GCC. It also doesn't support PowerPC so as long as they're supporting both architechtures they can't use ICC exclusively.
It'll be an option for people that need better performance on x86. Any collaboration is so that ICC can be hooked into XCode in an easy to use way.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
Assembler?
Apple is switching from gcc to intel's compiler? What the hell is going on here, all of a sudden apple is becomeing less OSS friendly...
... ICC only runs on x86. OS X had its native "made by processor designers' home company(tm)" compiler when it was (and still is) on PowerPC, now that Apple's going to Intel, it just seems logical that Intel does this. At least to show a little support to Apple.
:)
IBM compilers (xl* compilers) were proprietary software and still were ported to OS X too, and AFAIK had better performances than gcc on PPC970 (even though Apple did help on optimizing gcc on G4/G5), just like ICC is better than gcc on x86 for most purposes (check benchmarks for yourselves).
No I'm not an Apple fanboy (please! I don't have any Apples nor plan to buy any) and I don't care much about Intel either. I'm more a free software guy trying to run only free software as far as I can for different reasons... And still I don't see how Apple could be less OSS friendly just because some other company (may it be Intel or not) releases closed softwares.
Where does it say Apple will stop using gcc themselves (and distributing it with OSX)? gcc runs on plenty of hardware and os'es
However, I'm not saying Apple is supporting "open source" software. I'd say that they're using FOSS smartly for now, but I don't see them in the OSS camp.
Lastly, ICC having better results than gcc gives the gcc team a great challenge and gcc4 is already a big improvement. ICC on OSX gives more choices to OSX developpers who would need good optimization for intensive arithmetic operations (where ICC shines). Anyway, gcc has strictly nothing to fear from icc, they're aimed at totally different "markets", and gcc is free, so what's to fear?
Now that all the major options for desktop systems run on intel, they want to see os competition. Erosion of Microsoft's desktop monopoly by Apple no longer equates to loss of market share for intel. Now they'd like to see Microsoft's influence reduced and be the only 800 lb. gorilla in the x86 world.
I dont think they are focused on IBM powered consoles as much as they are focused on being the last monopoly standing in the desktop market....or at least making sure that if AMD takes them down in court, nobody else is standing either.
Darth --
Nil Mortifi, Sine Lucre
Longer answer: No, because Intel's tools aren't what people develop with. They make use of Intel's compiler to generate better binaries, but the development is done in Visual Studio (ICC plugs right in).
You still find that by and large Windows apps are developed in Visual Studio because, despite what you may have heard, it's a really, really slick IDE, many programmers claim it's the best ever. Also, since it's from Microsoft, it supports all the Windows stuff (like DirectX) very well.
So the Intel tools peing ported to OS-X make no difference at all. Cross platform will be no easier or harder for it, it'll just mean faster apps on the Mac.
No. If you write a Mac app using Cocoa, it's only going to run on OS X, regardless of what compiler and other tools you use to build it. If you write a Windows app using the Win32 API, it's only going to run on Windows, regardless of what compiler and other tools you use. Same with Linux.
Conversely, if you write a portable app (or, more realistically, a portable library to use in your non-portable apps), then it will be easy to make it work on different compilers and with different tools on the various platforms, so having the Intel tools everywhere doesn't help that much.
Heck, gcc is widely used now on OS X and Linux, and is readily available for Windows, yet you don't see a great flood of cross-platform development. The Intel tools won't change that.
With Apple, they've finally got a company that doesn't care about all that legacy PC crap. Apple will build the x86 machines that Intel has always wanted.
That's why Intel considers this to be such a big deal.
This here is a great example of why there's no need to be so mean to people. FLAGGR comes off looking like a huge jerk simply because he wanted to be mean to mov_eax_eax. Even if mov_eax_eax had been wrong, correcting him politely would have been much nicer than the venomous reply that was actually posted.
No one is going to think you're cool just because you're mean to someone. You'll get more respect if you reply in a nicer fashion; and who knows, maybe the politeness will come back to you in the future.
Second, I think Xcode just gets its compiler list from reading a series of compiler definition files. As long as you build the definition file correctly, it would just be another compiler you can select from the pop-up list in the target inspector, IIRC. Xcode has supported gcc 2.95/3.0/3.3/4.0 for a while now, so this really isn't anything different from that perspective beyond its name not starting with 'g'.... :-)
Finally, with respect to the question of it only being useful for people who aren't trying to do PowerPC versions of their software, that's not entirely true. A universal binary is just a couple of ordinary binaries glued together with lipo(1). Build the PowerPC side with gcc (or xlc) and the x86 side with the ICC compiler, glue them together, and you're done. In fact, that's exactly how universal binary builds work when gcc is used by itself....
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