Re: Universal Binaries, x86 and compatibility...
Re: Universal Binaries, x86 and compatibility...
- Subject: Re: Universal Binaries, x86 and compatibility...
- From: Niels Meersschaert <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 8 Jun 2005 17:10:23 -0400
Keith,
I appreciate your frustration about Core Data, but it's not as though
the code you spent time working on doesn't work under Tiger. It's
just that now, there is an easier way to do it that minimizes your
code base. Unless you want to target only Tiger, there is no need to
throw that code out & replace it with Core Data.
Apple has generally been good about maintaining backwards
compatibility between OS X releases. In all likelihood, your app
should run fine, as you plan to use Cocoa APIs. The real issue
between Intel & PPC is in endianness, so byte ordering becomes
important going thru the transition. Unfortunately, you can't test
that issue without an Intel Mac. The question you need to ask
yourself is how much of your target audience will be using the Intel
Macs before you buy one & migrate your code. Then ask yourself if
you can afford to have your app not be native while you transition
the code. I certainly wouldn't recommend releasing a Universal
Binary that hadn't been tested on an Intel Mac.
I tend to determine purchases based on how I value my time. I'm at
the beginning of a development cycle, but the app I'm working on will
be CPU & graphics intensive, so it's better to be native. $999 buys
me the ability to cross-develop before official Intel macs ship. The
coding decisions I make now will be checked on both PPC & Intel. I
can save a lot of time if I make a coding assumption based on PPC
that doesn't work on Intel, since I can notice the problem while I'm
developing, instead of completing the app & noticing the problem when
the actual machines ship. While I may not have that problem, the
$999 buys me peace of mind & a full year's head-start on porting.
In your case, the Core Data functionality duplicated much of the code
you spent weeks working on. $500 for a select membership would have
gotten you early access to Tiger & thus could have saved you weeks of
work if you wanted to use Core Data & Tiger as minimum specs. Your
concern about possibly needing to change hundreds of lines of code a
year or two down the year is a valid one, unfortunately, it depends
on how you code your app as to what migration headaches you may
have. Ultimately, you need to decide for yourself how much you value
your time in determining if the transition kit would be a better bet
than waiting till the Intel Macs come out. It may be worth
considering your experience with Core Data in deciding that.
Good luck,
Niels
On Jun 8, 2005, at 4:14 PM, Keith Blount wrote:
Hello,
I am hoping someone can put my mind at rest about the
whole x86/Universal Binaries issue. I am developing an
app that will either be freeware or shareware, and
thus cannot afford the Transition Kit. I'm only just
now trying to get my head around Core Data as I had to
wait for the official release of Tiger to afford that,
and when I finally got it I found that a lot of code I
had spent a long time over was now redundant (not just
data stuff - I spent weeks and weeks on implementing
variable row heights in tables and lists in text
views). I'm not complaining, but it was frustrating.
And now it seems there is another major change coming
and again I won't be able to see how it affects my app
for some time...
So... am I safe in assuming - from reading various
comments and looking at the docs published with Xcode
2.1 - that the chances are that my app, which doesn't
do much more than use some custom views and use basic
AppKit/Foundation classes, will most likely just run
on an Intel machine once it is compiled as a Universal
Binary? It's not a big deal if the compatibility
issues are likely to be relatively minor and if it
will just mean ironing out some small bugs when the
new machines come out; what worries me is the idea of
having to rewrite hundreds of lines of code I'm
investing in right now a year or two down the line.
Sorry if this is a very basic question.
Cheers,
Keith
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