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From: awd@ut-ngp.UUCP (Andrew W. Donoho)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: Apple's Next Development Environment
Message-ID: <2613@ut-ngp.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 14-Nov-85 20:08:24 EST
Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.2613
Posted: Thu Nov 14 20:08:24 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Nov-85 07:32:03 EST
References: <1331@sphinx.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: UTexas Computation Center, Austin, Texas
Lines: 99


The following is a quick summary of what I know about Apple's new
development environment on the Mac, for the Mac.  The information is
mostly from a talk by Dan Cochran head of Apple Tools and Languages.

The new system (Macintosh Workshop) will include the following tools:

	Editor
	Assembler
	Linker
	Debugger
	Resource Editor

	Pascal Compiler

	C Compiler

All the tools except for the Pascal and C compilers will be in a
single package and the compilers will be available separately.  The
prices were supposed to be about $295-$495 for the main system and
$195-$395 for each compiler.  As Dan mentioned, most of the cost of
these is in the documentation, rather than the package itself.

Editor:

The editor will be a completely new program that is supposed to include
some kind of regular expression support (possibly using Macintosh
special characters in place of the \, etc.).  It also will include a
scripting capability which allows you to write non-Mac programs (i.e.
filters) and run them from the editor, with parameter passing like
UNIX.  Hopefully the scripting language will be something close to the
power of the various UNIX shells.  It will have a number of
Mac-specific features, such as dialogs defined in the shell language
to set shell "environment variables"; this sounds exciting!

Assembler:

The assembler will also be a new program written from scratch.  It will
have a more powerful macro facility (Dan compared it to 370 macros?).
This will not be directly compatible with MDS assembler or with the
Lisa Workshop assembler, but Dan promised that migration tools
will be available when the system is released.

Linker:

The linker will be similar to the Lisa Workshop linker (the best part
of the Lisa Workshop, in my opinion).  The format for raw object files
is being released to language developers now and some network folks
should see it soon.  Apparently, the linker will not only link in
object files, but also take resources from resource work files and put
them into the application.

Debugger:

According to Dan, no one knows exactly what the debugger will be like
(or no one did at the time he gave the talk).  As an employee of the
manufacturer of TMON, I was very interested, but apparently it is
still in the works.

Resource Editor:

This will be the final version of ResEdit.  Apparently there is also a
new "Resource Definition Language" that will be the definitive way of
describing a resource in a text file.  No clue on how that fits into
things or what it will be like.

Pascal Compiler:

This is going to be the Lisa Pascal compiler, set up to run in the new
Editor environment (command line options!?!).  It will include the
Object Pascal extensions necessary for MacApp development.  The
documentation will also be all new.

C Compiler:

This is going to be the Lisa C compiler (also know as Green Hills C
for the Lisa) improved by the test of time and integrated with the
rest of the development system.

MacApp:

Dan said he hopes to make the MacApp "expandable application" the
fourth part of this development system, eventually.

It will be possible to mix C, Pascal,and Assembly freely in a program.
Pascal will obey C parameter passing conventions for specified procedures,
C will obey Pascal parameter passing conventions for specified procedures,
and the object file format will be the same for both compilers and for
the assembler.)

Now comes the bad news:  The Alpha versions of the Mac Workshop should
be ready in December.  That means that Beta versions can probably be
expected next March or so.  I have high hopes for this system, but I
am not going to hold my breath waiting for it.

Darin Adler

(I may work for ICOM Simulations, but my opinions are not those of my
 employer.)