Coming from the Linux/Windows World

[gamehack]

Hi all,

I just wanted to ask what are my available options writing native mac os x application? I do not want to learn Obj-C nor I want to write programs in C. I'm looking for using my C++/C# skills. Any suggestions are welcomed.

Kind regards,
gamehack

[Viro]

Forget C#. It isn't really usable on OS X since Mono is way way way behind on OS X compared to Linux. Stick with C++ and your options are Qt, wxWidgets or Carbon. I'd personally recommend Qt because it's portable, and applications look kinda native. wxWidgets applications look even better, but the toolkit itself isn't as well documented as Qt.

Or you could learn Objective-C. It's quite a nice language, once you get used to it.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

C++ is fine for Mac OS X development.

You'll need a copy of XCode 1.5, which includes everything you need to write, compile, and create an interface for any project you want. It's available for free either by downloading it from Apple's Developer website, or from the CD that comes with retail versions of Mac OS X.

[kainjow]

Straight C++ for Mac development means you will be doing "legacy" Carbon coding. Personally, this isn't what you want to do if you'll be investing time creating software for Mac OS X.

Objective-C is what you do want to learn. Objective-C is a superset of C, however Xcode allows you to develop in Objective-C++, so all that C++ code you have is usable in your Cocoa program.

I'd suggest you do learn Objective-C for the UI interaction, but for your logic stick with C++ if that's what you know best. Mac OS 10.3 makes UI easy with bindings which requires no code at all. Just some connections in Interface Builder and you have a program!

[kainjow]

Oh, and if you know C# well, then you could learn Cocoa-Java easily, and make native Cocoa apps using Java.

Just a thought...

[gamehack]

Thanks a lot for the replies. I've some other questions though So can I use C++ with Carbon or Cocoa? From what I understand Cocoa is like an abstraction on top of Carbon, which itself is written in C(Obj-C?). Does Apple provide C++ bindings for either Carbon or Cocoa?

Thanks a lot

[Viro]

No, Cocoa and Carbon are separate. Carbon is for legacy apps, and is a C based API very similar to Win32. In fact, there is nearly a one to one mapping between function calls as Win32 and Carbon are so similar. That's been my experience anyway, for my little exploits into carbon.

Apple doesn't provide C++ bindings for either Carbon or Cocoa. There are C++ bindings for Carbon. Qt and wxWidgets use Carbon to render all widgets, so if you use these toolkits, your resulting application will behave just like a carbon app. For Cocoa, at the moment only wxWidgets has a Cocoa backend, and it looks quite nice!

The benefit of both wxWidgets and Qt is that your programs are going to be highly portable. I personally suggest you try one of these.

[gamehack]

Is there a difference between the visual appearance between Carbon and Cocoa applications? And are there XML etc libraries so I can use them straight away?

Thanks