Xcode 3.0, Objective-C 2.0 preview
updated 02:40 am EDT, Fri June 22, 2007
Xcode 3.0, Objective-C 2.0
Xcode 3.0 and Objective-C 2.0 are both on their way in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard), scheduled for release in October. The former provides much-anticipated enhancements for Apple's IDE, offering developers to see errors and warnings in their code without opening a build messages window, and offering Inline balloons point to the locations of errors. Code completion features cpme in the form of a drop-down list of completion options with the selections narrow as the user continues to type. Computerworld also notes some significant performance improvements: "[...] of interest to those developers new to the Mac -- and possibly to object-oriented development -- are improvements that speed the editor's handling of large source code files. Apple claims to open and scroll through big monolithic code files up to 10 times faster than before."
Meanwhile, Objective-C 2.0, the new version of Apple's language for developing Cocoa applications, will sport garbage collection -- a major new feature that obviates the need to manually track memory and resource allocation during the course of an application's operation. The tool allows automatic freeing of resources and allocated memory when they are not in use.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: Jul 2004
Cost vs other tools
I am excited to play around with the new X-Code and Obj-C 2.0.
I am still amazed that Apple provides this for FREE. When MS and others charge hundreds of dollars for similar tools.
If you have never used Objective-C and X-Code (or the old Project Builder). I found them much easier than developing in Visual Studio and C#. If you have used Java or C++ learning the basics of Obj-C will take you a weekend.