Developing OS X Software

Pax-UX · n00b Joined: 20 Feb 2004 Posts: 65

Ive just purchased an iBook 1.2GHz to tryout the whole Mac thing, so far am very impressed with what looks like a great GUI on top of a UNIX distro. Now I was hoping to do some software development: Java, C++. While I would like it to cross compile its not a must. Things like Java obviously will but the C++ is really to write OS X utilities that Ill require if I want to move completely from a PC to the Mac world, which so far looks very promising.

Anyone have some tips on what I need as this is all new to me. Is there anything like Visual Basic / Delphi on OS/X? What is a good IDE or what tools are required? Is OS X just X11? Also if you know any good mac sites that would help a Mac newbi

cyphrex · n00b Joined: 09 Jul 2004 Posts: 6 Location: Melbourne, FL

Apple offers a IDE for Mac OS X, the current incarnation is called Xcode. It's pretty good for develping project based applications, but in my opinion the interface needs some tweaking. I used it a lot when I was taking my computer graphics course. Most the GUI applications from what I understand either need to be written Objective C or has to be compatible with it. You could just skip all of that and code C/C++ for GCC but either way you still need the Xcode SDK, which is free but I think I had to register as a developer with Aplle to get it. Personally I recommend getting a Java IDE like netbeans, mainly because the JRE runs well on OS X and you don't have deal with Xcode's GUI builder... I wasn't a fan.

However, if you're sticking with Xcode and want to develop GUI based applications then I recommend learning about the Cocoa API

gene-bean · n00b Joined: 21 Feb 2005 Posts: 9 Location: Georgia, USA

If you are serious about developing for OS X you need to use Xcode Tools 2.1 from Apple's Developer site
http://developer.apple.com/macosx
To get it, you must become a member (it's free) and it will be listed in the Downloads section. The reason I say this is because Apple is moving to Intel processors starting in 2006. Using Xcode Tools 2.1 you can create a universal binary that will work on both PPC and Intel. As a side note, Xcode Tools 2.1 requires Tiger.
More info about the universal binary can be found here:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/MacOSX/Conceptual/universal_binary/index.html

Pax-UX · n00b Joined: 20 Feb 2004 Posts: 65

Thanks for the info guys... just back for holiday... I'll be giving all of those options run through! Nothing worse the starting all over again on a new platform and not knowing your ass from your elbow. Does apple product good documention for learning? Or would it be best to buy a good book?