C development environment for The Mac

[John Bruner]

[I'm cross-posting this to "net.micro.mac" and directing followups
to that newsgroup only.]

Before I start, I'd like to say that if you are used to developing
C programs on UNIX, using the Mac will be a big step down.  It is
*slow*.  It is *painful* (beware of leaving your source discs in
the Mac when running your program -- in several cases a program
crash due to an uninitialized pointer has caused my Mac to freak
out and trash my discs).  The Toolbox doesn't handle errors very
well (e.g. DrawPicture on a still-open picture will produce a disc-
destroying crash).  [Much of this is to be expected, given the
difference in hardware between (say) a VAX with Fujitsu Eagles
and a non-MMU micro with floppy discs.  I hope affordable micros
with memory management start showing up in the marketplace soon.]

The November 1985 issue of BYTE does have a lengthy comparison of
Macintosh C compilers.  The author favors the Manx Aztec C
development system.  The Manx product is a good one; however, I
believe that the review was somewhat unfair to the Megamax compiler.
(I use the Megamax compiler, but I have no other connection with
Megamax, Inc.)

One point which argues against the Megamax compiler (and which was
understated in the review) is that it defines "short" integers to
be 8 bits wide.  This is contrary to the conventional practice in
other compilers (and will be in violation of the ANSI standard
when that standard becomes available).  This is a serious
"misfeature" and I wish Megamax could be persuaded to fix it.

A big factor in favor of the Megamax compiler is the lack of
copy protection.  This has made their development system very
flexible.

A second major factor is price.  The review compares the most
expensive development system available for each of the five
compilers it covered.  The difference between the (undiscounted)
prices of the Megamax compiler and Aztec developer's system
is $200.

It was unfair to cite the RAMdisc compile time of the Aztec C
compiler without providing similar figures for the other
compilers.  Perhaps the other compilers do not come with RAM
discs, but for $200 (the difference in price between the
Aztec developer's sytem and the Megamax system) one can purchase
all of the available RAM discs for the Macintosh (some are even
public domain).  The lack of copy-protection on the Megamax
compiler probably enables it to use the RAMdisc more effectively
than the Aztec compiler can.

One negative assertion about the Megamax system -- the lack
of sources for the library routines -- is untrue.  The sources
can be purchased for (I believe) $75.  ($375 is still cheaper
than $500.)

I have found Megamax to be an good company to deal with.  With
the exception of short integers, I'm [obviously, I guess] a
satisfied user of their product.
-- 
  John Bruner (S-1 Project, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory)
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