Question

I am a 10year+, C++ linux/windows developer and I have been asked to estimate the effort to port the windows application to OS X.

I haven’t developed on OS X before,so I don’t know what to expect.

It is a C++/Qt application, so I want to ask: what are the de facto tools like editor, IDE, compiler, make tool, etc ? Which tools are commercial and need to be purchased ?

How much time would it take for me to get used to the environment and be productive ?

Thanks in advance,

Paul

Answer 1

As jakber already posted, XCode is the standard IDE for MacOSX, and is free (comes with the install DVD or can be downloaded from apple.

The XCode IDE is quite different from that of Visual Studio, and it seems to me as if it were more familiar to Codewarrior. I don’t know if there are any tools to convert VS projects to XCode, but there are tools as CMake where you can describe your project and make it generate both Visual Studio solutions and XCode projects (well, and many more).

It is quite hard to estimate the time it will take a particular person to be productive in an environment, and even more when you don’t define how you are used to work. For example, if you used KDevelop, then it is directly available under MacOSX. Also, some people are more dependent than others on the tools the IDE provide (source navigation, for example).

Finally, compiler errors are different in Microsoft compilers and g++ (used both in linux and MacOSX) and you will have to get used to it.

Afterpost:

As an answer to your comment, there are more than one compiler for MacOSX. The standard that comes with the OS is gcc (4.0.1) but you can buy the Intel compiler or other frontends like comeau to gcc.