Yarvin

so where would I get the developer tools? I'm seriously thinking about switching to a mac... since those new Macbooks came out but I don't know anything about macs....

andro

The dev tools are on the install discs.

Soulstorm

Xcode tools come as optional installs into the OS X install disks. They will not be installed by default into your system.

Xcode doesn't consume much RAM and processing power as you say. I use XCode 2.2 and OS X tiger, and Xcode's performance is pretty decent into my iMac G4 1GHz (let alone my G5), even when building Cocoa and OpenGL intensive applications.

The command line can produce many problems if your program grows in size. For the novice programmer, programming with the terminal can be intimidating, but I know many people who like it better than using an IDE. Of course, it's all a matter of getting used to things.

But if you intend to move to Obj-C and Obj-C++, where you will need to link you programs with multiple frameworks, I think Xcode will suit you best.

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zorin

I used Mac OSX for about a month at college last year and found Code Warrior was really good. It has and IDE but you said you want a less "Heavy" compiler. Code Warrior also has some command line compilers that work really well. The only downside is that its commercial software so you have to pay for it, but you can problly find a student version for cheaper or somthing.

titaniumdecoy

Metrowerks has discontinued CodeWarrior for Mac; I believe the last version is or will be version 10. (For some reason Metrowerks refuses to make their development tools compatible with Intel processors.) As I mentioned earlier, Intel will release a commercial developer package in the future which is intended to replace CodeWarrior.

andro

After Apples switch to Intel, they pretty much stated that any Mac centered development is going to have to be done in Xcode, and that all developers still user CodeWarrior are going to need to transition to Xcode. Its the only way you can produce universal binaries at this point.

Its all in the WWDC Keynote speech from last year. Steve basically said that any serious mac development needs to take place in Xcode.

Soulstorm

Actually, they stated that before apple announces the switch to Intel. The switch from CodeWarrior to Xcode would be inevitable, because Xcode was the only IDE which would allow taking advantage of heavy 64-bit altivec operations in G5 machines.

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gumbyman31

Well, either way, it looks like Xcode is looking to become the dominant programming utility for Mac anyways, so I might as well learn it.

AICkieran

Assuming you dont have the dev tools installed, download them from apple or install them. Then to compile something just cd to the directory its in and use g++ or gcc

Soulstorm

Yup. You will see that sometimes it will be frustrating, but you'll eventually love it, as most people do.

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