Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!apple!dan
From: dan@Apple.COM (Dan Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: Mac Development Tools
Message-ID: <16217@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 27 Aug 88 21:05:35 GMT
References: <304@h-three.UUCP>
Reply-To: dan@apple.com.UUCP (Dan Allen)
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 33

In article <304@h-three.UUCP> scott@h-three.UUCP (scott) writes:
>What are the best software development tools for the Mac ?
>

The best tools have yet to be written.


>Which generates faster code: MPW c or MPW Pascal ?
MPW Pascal and MPW C each have advantages in the benchmarks.  It just
depends upon which benchmark you run.  C is relatively good at global
register allocation, while Pascal does not seem to emit long streams of
senseless instructions (move a,b  move b,a type of things) which C does.
Its a tossup.  I am sure the features of the languages are much more
important than the performance of either one.  MPW Pascal is easier to
use for non-standard CODE like DAs, INITs and the like because it
generates less global data than C.

>What are the relative advantages+disads for using MPW compilers
>instead of third-party c and Pascal compilers ?

MPW compilers have very slow compile times, Think compilers shine in
this area.  MPW compilers generally generate better code than Think.
MPW Compilers do have the advantage of great inter-language support (a
program can consist of C,Pascal, & Asm code all inter-linked without any
problems.)

The MPW Shell environment is much more user customizable, with custom
menus, tools, scripts, and lots of standard tools at your disposal.  I
am, however, a bit biased, as I helped write MPW... for more info see my
article on MPW in a special Dr. Dobb's summer Macintosh issue.

Dan Allen
Apple Computer