What an horrible IDE!!!

[sje]

Xcode does what it's supposed to do

I have been using Xcode since is was called Project Builder and Interface Builder back some 15 years ago when Mac OS/X first shipped.

It does what it's supposed to do, which is to help make applications for Mac OS/X and Mac iOS which Apple can then sell with a 30% commission.

Wanting Xcode do much of anything else is asking too much. Apple could have provided Xcode language customizations for Pascal, Lisp, Scheme, Prolog, Forth, etc. but they didn't. They're not even interested in having someone else do the work.

Further, Apple is not interested in supporting Macs which are more than a few years old; no updates, no security fixes, no C++11, etc. Oh, wait: Apple will update iTunes for these older Macs, because then Apple can collect its pimp fee for other people's work via the iTunes Store. I know this because I have three of these Macs, each with a multi-core 64 bit Intel CPU, but all are stuck at OS/X 10.7 because Apple refused to allow OS/X 10.8 or later to run on them -- but iTunes Store access just keeps on working and is updated regularly.

My advice: Avoid Apple and their Xcode. Linux has everything you really need for development and its tools are improved regularly.

[stegemma]

[...]My advice: Avoid Apple and their Xcode. Linux has everything you really need for development and its tools are improved regularly.

You're right but my customers ask me for a Mac version of my business software and it would be impossible to develop (and test) for Mac on Linux, as far as I know. In Italy we call it: "legare l'asino dove vuole il padrone"

(from google translator: "tying the donkey where the master wants")

[Joost Buijs]

I would not be surprised when we will see a full-fletched version of Visual Studio running under Linux in the nearby future.

Not that it interest me, I find everything running under Linux very cumbersome to use.

[Henk]

Yes Linux is Unix is from 70's means no mouse so uses vi for file editing. By the way I only remember ls -als

[stegemma]

In 2015 it is still difficult to have a very portable interface, not just a very portable IDE for that... maybe wxWidgets/wxFormBuilder are the only usable tools, for this (and both are not the best samples of good object oriented programming).

QT has its own ide with form designer and whatnot and is portable between all 3 desktop platforms and is getting better at mobile targets.

QT for commercial applications costs 350$/month... it seems "a little high" to me. The LPGL license is not clear because they say in the FAQ:

"The user of your application has to be able to re-link your application against a different or modified version of the Qt library."

That's could be good for a free chess software but not for commercial applications.

[sje]

You're right but my customers ask me for a Mac version of my business software and it would be impossible to develop (and test) for Mac on Linux, as far as I know.

Most applications can be split into the GUI part and the everything-else part. If the interface between the GUI and the rest is fairly clean, then only the GUI need be developed on a specific platform. Platform dependent code in the non-GUI part can usually be isolated in a single source file where it can't pollute the rest of the code. This is how Symbolic does it; the program is about 25+K lines long and almost all of the platform dependent code is trapped in the single, small file Utilities.cpp. I might be able to eliminate even this if all of my target platforms supported C++11.

[uaf]

The LPGL license is not clear because they say in the FAQ:

"The user of your application has to be able to re-link your application against a different or modified version of the Qt library."

It means that the Qt library must be dynamically linked thus you have to provide Qt dll files with your application. Besides with the LGPL license, you must clearly state in documentation/readme/etc that your sofware is using Qt and if you make any changes to Qt you must publish them unless they are small ones.

[kbhearn]

In 2015 it is still difficult to have a very portable interface, not just a very portable IDE for that... maybe wxWidgets/wxFormBuilder are the only usable tools, for this (and both are not the best samples of good object oriented programming).

QT has its own ide with form designer and whatnot and is portable between all 3 desktop platforms and is getting better at mobile targets.

QT for commercial applications costs 350$/month... it seems "a little high" to me. The LPGL license is not clear because they say in the FAQ:

"The user of your application has to be able to re-link your application against a different or modified version of the Qt library."

That's could be good for a free chess software but not for commercial applications.

LGPL should be fine for commercial applications. In essence it just comes down to dynamic linking to the library. All you're missing with the commercial license is a few 'extra' features that aren't core to the library, support, and the ability to use a modified version of the library without releasing the changes.

You may also be missing the ability to target some mobile platforms though because i believe dynamic linking isn't an option on iOS for instance. Last i looked targetting android shouldn't have this issue though.

[stegemma]

You're right but my customers ask me for a Mac version of my business software and it would be impossible to develop (and test) for Mac on Linux, as far as I know.

Most applications can be split into the GUI part and the everything-else part. If the interface between the GUI and the rest is fairly clean, then only the GUI need be developed on a specific platform. Platform dependent code in the non-GUI part can usually be isolated in a single source file where it can't pollute the rest of the code. This is how Symbolic does it; the program is about 25+K lines long and almost all of the platform dependent code is trapped in the single, small file Utilities.cpp. I might be able to eliminate even this if all of my target platforms supported C++11.

Satana is already based on my portable C++ libraries, with can handle custom DB, sockets and so on, on Windows/Mac/Linux, so the problem is only for other commercial software and the user interface. I've wrote a portable http server too with this libraries so that I could use HTTP as my commercial applications interface. This would eliminates the need of a desktop GUI but I have to learn almost JavaScript, to make it usable. The problem with this approach is that some antivirus (Avira, for sample) doesn't like this kind of software, but this can be solved. For "low level users", a traditional desktop application is still the simplest solution... and unluckily is this kind of software that gives me enough money to survive

[stegemma]

[...]LGPL should be fine for commercial applications. In essence it just comes down to dynamic linking to the library. All you're missing with the commercial license is a few 'extra' features that aren't core to the library, support, and the ability to use a modified version of the library without releasing the changes.

You may also be missing the ability to target some mobile platforms though because i believe dynamic linking isn't an option on iOS for instance. Last i looked targetting android shouldn't have this issue though.

QT on Mac/Linux uses XWindow or native components?