Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Chapter 15. Xcode Tools

Macintosh software development is far easier than ever before. Not only does Mac OS X ship with a large variety of development tools for free, but the tools themselves—especially the integrated development environment applications Xcode and Interface Builder—are beautiful pieces of work that help even newcomers start writing Mac OS X applications quickly.

This chapter outlines the Xcode Tools that ship with Mac OS X Panther and touches on the system resources that make Unix development possible on a Mac.

Getting the Xcode Tools

When first installed onto a machine, Mac OS X actually lacks all the development tools mentioned in this chapter (as well crucial BSD-layer development tools such as gcc 3.3). You have to take a few extra steps to install them.

The fastest way into the Xcode Tools simply involves inserting the Xcode Tools CD that ships with every boxed set of Mac OS X Panther and double-clicking its installer icon. This installs the whole /Developer hierarchy and various Unix libraries and executables that make software development (or even just compiling programs from downloaded source code) possible.

If you purchased new hardware, you may not have the Xcode Tools CD. Instead, you can install the Xcode Tools by double-clicking on Developer.mpkg, found in /Applications/Installers/Developer Tools.

We recommend that you follow up by joining the Apple Developer Connection (ADC), at http://connect.apple.com, which offers a free, online membership. Through ...