Multi-Platform development tool
by Kirby Webber · in General Discussion · 03/28/2003 (8:43 am) · 4 replies
Stumbled on this recently, and it occurred to me that it would be a useful tool for multi-platfor development:
connectix.com
Of course, Microsoft is betting ready to buy it out, but it still has alot of promise (IMO) in the meantime. ;-)
[edit:] Forgot to mention... this is in reference to the Virtual Machine.[/edit]
connectix.com
Of course, Microsoft is betting ready to buy it out, but it still has alot of promise (IMO) in the meantime. ;-)
[edit:] Forgot to mention... this is in reference to the Virtual Machine.[/edit]
#2
The purchase by M$ is front page news on the site, but the fact is that until the deal goes through you can still get the software straight from the vendor.
I would think that the ability to switch from one OS to another with a simple mouse click would be VERY valuable to cross platform development, but maybe that's just me.
The only drawback I can see is that any version you buy will be frozen in time once the M$ deal goes through. =/
03/28/2003 (10:45 am)
I just thought it was a price effective alternative to running multiple PC's, and more time efficient than dual boot. ;-)The purchase by M$ is front page news on the site, but the fact is that until the deal goes through you can still get the software straight from the vendor.
I would think that the ability to switch from one OS to another with a simple mouse click would be VERY valuable to cross platform development, but maybe that's just me.
The only drawback I can see is that any version you buy will be frozen in time once the M$ deal goes through. =/
#3
It's really not good to do development in an emulator like this, because any testing or profiling you do is inherently flawed, since you're not running on the real target system.
This is great if you've got one or two mac guys in an otherwise all microsoft office, though.
03/28/2003 (10:50 am)
I know a few people that use this. Mostly for running buisness applications or Art tools, though.It's really not good to do development in an emulator like this, because any testing or profiling you do is inherently flawed, since you're not running on the real target system.
This is great if you've got one or two mac guys in an otherwise all microsoft office, though.
#4
It's just that the software by itself doesn't inherently facilitate cross platform development.
Especially not games, as there is no more 3D hw acceleration support in Virtual PC (they use to support Voodoo 1 and then Voodoo 2, kind of)
And you still have to buy the development software, etc. (using gcc in the emulator is not a good idea, as you can set up gcc to do cross platform compiling at native speeds, rather than using it under emulation)
And it only runs on Mac, so the dual boot imagery is not really valid : it was bought by the Mac business unit as M$, so there is no plan to port it to x86 to emulate Macs (there are already a couple commercial solutions to do this on your PC)
it's not like VMWare on PCs, Sheep on BeOS for PPCor Mac On LinuxPPC that allow you to run another OS without having to reboot, but the OS is meant for your particular CPU platform, so the code is not interpreted like it is in Virtual PC...
So yes, it can help, but it certainly is not the panacea that the marketing department would have you believe :)
03/28/2003 (11:05 am)
Hey, don't get me wrong : I bought Virtual PC 1 back in '97 (upgraded to 2 and then 3) to do Visual Basic development on my Mac, among other uses...It's just that the software by itself doesn't inherently facilitate cross platform development.
Especially not games, as there is no more 3D hw acceleration support in Virtual PC (they use to support Voodoo 1 and then Voodoo 2, kind of)
And you still have to buy the development software, etc. (using gcc in the emulator is not a good idea, as you can set up gcc to do cross platform compiling at native speeds, rather than using it under emulation)
And it only runs on Mac, so the dual boot imagery is not really valid : it was bought by the Mac business unit as M$, so there is no plan to port it to x86 to emulate Macs (there are already a couple commercial solutions to do this on your PC)
it's not like VMWare on PCs, Sheep on BeOS for PPCor Mac On LinuxPPC that allow you to run another OS without having to reboot, but the OS is meant for your particular CPU platform, so the code is not interpreted like it is in Virtual PC...
So yes, it can help, but it certainly is not the panacea that the marketing department would have you believe :)
Torque Owner Nicolas Quijano
It's been bought by M$ : that's done deal...
maccentral.macworld.com/news/2003/02/19/macbu/
And like any other emulator, you still need the software to run on your emulated computer, so per se it doesn't do much to help cross platform development.