Saturday 6 June 2015

OSX developer experiences

I tried to install CodeLite, but because it's from unknown source OSX didn't allow me to do that. You can override that by installing with admin or whatever, but I just didn't have the energy. Besides I have Code::Blocks installed. When started it wanted to install some kind of developer tools (compiler I guess?) which I thought I had installed before. Or didn't I start C::B when I installed it earlier?

I wanted to try wxWidgets, but couple of reasons made me stop trying. First you have to compile it from sources to OSX. I tried quickly to search some kind of "how-to" for OSX, but no luck. Then I was looking at wx docs and while it's C++ it seems to be an overcomplicated system. I guess full GUI libraries are like that, but it's just so depressing.

I wish there were something like SDL2, but with simple dialogs, menus and above all a file dialog. That would be great for people who don't want to install an operating system (like wx), but on the other hand don't want to code everything from the scratch (like with SDL2 if you want a GUI).

There has been some talk about OSX becoming worse for desktop developers, because Apple is concentrating more on mobile platforms like tablets and phones. I think it is kind of hostile environment for developers, because at the same time Apple assumes that you want to use XCode and their technologies, but then also you have a unix system working in the background which allows pesky command line hacking I'm really not willing to handle myself. It's not for me, because I've been using IDEs since 1990's.

I was planning to move Brick Atelier to OSX and SDL2, but then again it would be easier to ditch SDL2 and try more advanced GUI library. Not wxWidgets I guess. Or who knows it might be easy when you get over the first impression?