3 ms·

For the most part, Apple has given away development tools for free, or at very low cost, primarily to cover the overhead of offering them There was no freely a

by hugh3 15y ago

For the most part, Apple has given away development tools for free, or at very low cost, primarily to cover the overhead of offering them There was no freely available compiler for the mac between System 1 and OSX. My fifteen-year-old self had to make an at-the-time pretty significant investment to buy Metrowerks Codewarrior. That was the anti-golden-age of programming.

sitkack 15y ago
Stallman and GNU effectively ended the market for high priced proprietary dev tools. As a tool builder and user this is good and bad. That whole market segment has been removed for consideration and now the tool builder/user can sell their creations (the part that solves non-builder's problems while now giving away the tools they create while solving the user's problems). This transition has been very liberating. Now anyone with a modest hardware investment can have some of the best tools in the world to solve problems with. Amazing times. My first C/C++ compiler cost nearly as much as the machine it ran on. This will never happen again and we can thank the GNU ecoSystem for jump starting the new ground rules. I dumbfounded by all the awesome software I can use to build larger systems with everyday, literally millions of dollars worth of assets. Anyone anywhere could do this, with only food, water, hardware, electricity and internet.
- ghaff 15y ago
  RMS/GNU played a role. However, they had very little impact on the non-*nix space until prices of development tools had already dropped pretty sharply on DOS and then Windows. (Borland had a lot to do with it.) Tools, especially the pro editions and a lot of add-on libraries, were still a long way from free but the price points were coming down markedly. Ultimately though, I agree it was open source that drove the final nail into dev tools as a standalone business for most purposes.
  - sitkack 15y ago
    GNU tools have profoundly changed the Microsoft platform, I remember when http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ came out, everyone could get a legit C compiler for DOS/Windows. This was a huge deal. Microsoft did its damnedest to kill Borland and its inexpensive tools. Proprietary dev tools still exist, true, but the landscape is so vastly different. Even my favorite IDE IntelliJ has the source released under a BSD license, I actually reupped my license when they did this.
robterrell 15y ago
Did you forget about Apple's MPW? I don't know when you turned 15 but there was a very long span of time during which MPW was a good free option.

by hugh3 15y ago

sitkack 15y ago

Stallman and GNU effectively ended the market for high priced proprietary dev tools. As a tool builder and user this is good and bad. That whole market segment has been removed for consideration and now the tool builder/user can sell their creations (the part that solves non-builder's problems while now giving away the tools they create while solving the user's problems). This transition has been very liberating. Now anyone with a modest hardware investment can have some of the best tools in the world to solve problems with. Amazing times. My first C/C++ compiler cost nearly as much as the machine it ran on. This will never happen again and we can thank the GNU ecoSystem for jump starting the new ground rules. I dumbfounded by all the awesome software I can use to build larger systems with everyday, literally millions of dollars worth of assets. Anyone anywhere could do this, with only food, water, hardware, electricity and internet.

ghaff 15y ago
RMS/GNU played a role. However, they had very little impact on the non-*nix space until prices of development tools had already dropped pretty sharply on DOS and then Windows. (Borland had a lot to do with it.) Tools, especially the pro editions and a lot of add-on libraries, were still a long way from free but the price points were coming down markedly. Ultimately though, I agree it was open source that drove the final nail into dev tools as a standalone business for most purposes.
- sitkack 15y ago
  GNU tools have profoundly changed the Microsoft platform, I remember when http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ came out, everyone could get a legit C compiler for DOS/Windows. This was a huge deal. Microsoft did its damnedest to kill Borland and its inexpensive tools. Proprietary dev tools still exist, true, but the landscape is so vastly different. Even my favorite IDE IntelliJ has the source released under a BSD license, I actually reupped my license when they did this.

robterrell 15y ago

Did you forget about Apple's MPW? I don't know when you turned 15 but there was a very long span of time during which MPW was a good free option.