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MacOS Core Programming Course
Prerequisites

Programming Skills

The MacOS Core Course assumes that the student is already proficient in either C or Pascal. All materials and example code are designed to illustrate the specifics of using the managers and utilities provided by the MacOS Toolbox to build applications for MacOS computers, not to teach general programming techniques or programming language specific syntax or techniques. If you are reasonably proficient in either C or Pascal you should have no trouble with the course materials.

Knowledge of the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines is important when designing the user interface for a new application. Apple publishes specific guidelines, but the knowledge gained from direct use of a few typical MacOS applications is probably sufficient to keep most developers in sync with the user's expectations for the behavior of a Macintosh application.

The MacOS was originally written in Pascal, and the syntax of system calls sometimes show this origin. Pascal programmers will immediately recognize some of the "types" used by the Mac OS managers. C language programmers should take the time to learn the associated types (with special attention to Pascal's length based approach to string handling). Most MacOS based C language compilers provide versions of the headers that declare the common structures in C syntax, but Apple and other third party supplied Mac Toolbox documentation frequently is only available in the "Pascal" flavor.

Special note on the relevance of the "Standard C Library".

C programs generally rely on the "standard C library" (included with the C compiler) for console input/output and to perform file I/O. While most of the standard library is still useful, these two subsets of it are rendered obsolete by the requirements of the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines. Console input/output has no relevance in the world of the Macintosh Graphical User Interface, and Macintosh C demonstration programs utilise system software routines from the MacOS Toolbox, rather than C standard library routines, to effect both console and file input/output.

Programming Tools

The tools you will require for the Mac C Course are as follows:

• Development System. The Mac C Course necessarily involves running, and experimenting with, the Macintosh C demonstration programs. Accordingly, you will need to have and know how to use one of the following systems:
  • Metrowerks CodeWarrior. All CodeWarrior variants will be suitable, including the new beginner's package "Discover Programming for Macintosh". The Metrowerks home page has full details of the relevant Metrowerks products.
    Special Note: By special arrangement between The MOST and Metrowerks, bona fide MOST students are eligible to purchase the Academic version of Codewarrior directly from Metrowerks at student pricing. Please note that persons who are enrolled in an accredited academic institution should use their status THERE to qualify with Metrowerks instead of using their MOST status, as Metrowerks has asked us to limit the number who qualify for this offer through us. However, if you think that "Codewarrior Academic" is your best bet as your primary development tool for taking a MOST course and you can't afford the full professional version of Codewarrior but you can't otherwise qualify for the academic pricing, send radar an email and he'll discuss what it takes to qualify through the MOST. DISCLAIMER: The MOST, nor any of our members, receive any compensation from this process, nor does this offer constitute an endorsement of Metrowerks tools on the part of The MOST. It's just a way to facilitate getting a suitable and affordable tool into the hands of our students that was offered by a sympathetic vendor.
  • Symantec's THINK C (preferably Version 6.0), or the later Symantec products. Visit Symantec's home page for information on their products.
    Please note that the THINK C edition of the course materials used in the MacOS Core course is considered "frozen" by its author (K.J.Bricknell) and will not be developed further. It will remain lodged in the 680X0 microprocessor and pre-Universal Headers era in recognition of the many amateurs who are quite happy to remain in that era. The THINK C edition will therefore not carry you through to the PowerPC microprocessor era. Only the CodeWarrior edition contains information on porting applications to the Power Macintosh, and only the CodeWarrior edition will be further developed to accommodate new versions of the Mac OS. The foregoing should not be interpreted as representing an endorsement by either The MOST or the author of one development system over the other. It is simply a statement of fact which prospective students should take into account before deciding on which edition to download and before procuring their development system.
• Resource Editor. You may not know what "Resources" are yet, but you won't get very far in studying the MacOS before encountering them, and the need for a tool to create and edit them. The resource editor used in course materials is ResEdit (preferably Version 2.1.3) because it is free. Of course, if you wish to use Resorcerer, that's fine too. Most of the mentors, being MacOS developers, probably have a copy of that excellent commercial utility also :-).
• On-Line Reference. You may be able to just get by without an on-line reference in the very early stages, but you will need one eventually. You can choose between:
  • Symantec's disk-based THINK Reference, which is a little out-of date but still extremely useful.
  • Apple's CD-ROM-based Macintosh Programming Toolbox Assistant.

For additional detail on the tools and preparation required for this course, see the preface to the course text. Please note that this link takes you to the MacTech web site (the company that hosts the text which is used for the course). Their company web site is *NOT* part of the MOST, and has no links back to this page. If your browser does not support a "Back" facility, please set a bookmark for this spot before taking the above link.

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This Page Maintained by: radar pangaean * * * Original Author: radar pangaean
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