Apple - Mac OS X - Developer Tools

New Features

Overview

Whether your goal is to port a UNIX text filter, build a new kind of spreadsheet application, develop a full-featured video effects generator or make something altogether different, you’ll find sophisticated tools and technology to help you work quickly and productively in Mac OS X Panther. Best of all, a full suite of developer tools — called Xcode — is included free with Mac OS X Panther.

Xcode icon

Xcode: A new way to work
Combining powerful UNIX-based tools, an excellent Mac OS X user experience and a mix of high-performance development technologies, Xcode gives Mac OS X Panther developers the fastest way to create Mac OS X applications, a groundbreaking user interface and the easiest way to take advantage of new Apple technologies. With a new compiler machine model developed by Apple in partnership with IBM, Xcode uses gcc 3.3 to optimize code for Apple’s new PowerPC G5 architecture.

The Cocoa advantage
For new Mac OS X-only projects, Cocoa provides you with the fastest route to developing full-featured applications. A set of object-oriented frameworks that support rapid development and high productivity, Cocoa offers a full-featured set of classes which you can use to create robust and powerful Mac OS X applications. Cocoa is programmable in Java, Objective-C (a simple, object-oriented extension to ANSI-C) and AppleScript and allows easy integration with C, C++ and other languages.

The power of AppleScript
AppleScript gives you flexible Mac OS X scripting capability, coupled with integration with UNIX shell tools. You can use AppleScript for a variety of jobs, including batch processing, file conversion and manipulation, performing tasks at specified times, transferring information between databases and other applications and creating automated workflows by linking the actions of multiple applications to perform a series of related tasks.

UNIX foundation
Shell scripting

With its Open Source, UNIX-based foundation, Mac OS X Panther lets you script with your choice of languages: Perl, PHP, Python, Rexx, Scheme, Tcl and more. You can work with built-in development tools such as gcc, gdb, vi, emacs and pico and take advantage of UNIX shell tools such as grep, chmod, ps, crontab, top and tail. If you’ve written utility software on another UNIX platform, you can quickly get it running in Mac OS X Panther.

In addition to leveraging the gamut of UNIX tools, you can easily extend the power of your software by using QuickTime’s complete multimedia architecture, including support for Flash 4, Cubic VR, RTP/RTSP video streaming, MPEG and a wide array of graphic file formats. New in Panther, you can script the Mac OS X graphics architecture, Quartz, with python.

Java 1.4.1
Java has never looked this good. Built in to Mac OS X Panther is the latest, certified release of the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition, version 1.4.1 for Mac OS X. Still the only high-volume desktop operating system to ship with Java 2, Mac OS X is emerging as the best place to develop and deploy your applications.

Developer Tools

Xcode Ground-breaking new approach to developer productivity.

X11 The ultimate X11 workstation.

Darwin A standards-based core.

UNIX Open source projects enhance your software.

AppleScript Powerful, easy-to-learn automation.

Java Takes Java to the next level.

Power Mac G5
Use XCode to develop next-generation 64-bit applications. Use a Power Mac G5 to compile 64-bit applications faster. XCode features gcc 3.3, and distributed builds over Rendezvous.

Flexible options
Mac OS X Panther developers enjoy a wide variety of programming interface and language options, ranging from the myriad of proven UNIX tools and utilities to object-oriented Cocoa and the ultra-fast Xcode IDE.