Re: XCode Link Error - What does this mean?
Re: XCode Link Error - What does this mean?
- Subject: Re: XCode Link Error - What does this mean?
- From: Marshall Clow <email@hidden>
- Date: Fri, 2 May 2008 21:08:48 -0700
At 5:30 PM -0700 5/2/08, Rick Sustek wrote:
Jason, Marshall,
I certainly see your perspective on what you think the ideal
behavior should be. And in another world, that would be great.
But in *this* world, that perspective may be misinformed.
Sadly, I agree with you.
We are not where I think we *should* be.
You can certainly claim that Xcode, being an Apple developed Mac
app, should do all the right magic to morph wistful file names and
paths, into a format that is digestible to the underlying GNU tools.
That might be achievable. But it misses the point.
Step away from Xcode for a moment. The entire Mac OS X system is
built over a UNIX pedigreed system. Apple has done a wonderful job
of shielding the average user from that fact. They have managed to
leverage UNIX, GNU, and many other open source pieces into a very
usable system to the masses. That "lever" is actually a massively
huge and solid mass of power and maturity, which has steadily been
built over the past few decades.
Yes. And yet, it has some stunning holes.
The point being, that there is much, much more UNIX stuff and
command line stuff going on in your Mac system, than lowly Xcode's
GUI shim over GNU tools. Once you claim you are a developer, or a
power user, you have just crossed the magic facade that Apple has
put up, and entered into that realm.
Really? By claiming to be a developer, you suddenly forfeit the
expectation that your programs will work without a bunch of arcane
knowledge and arbitrary limitations?
I don't buy that. Not for a second. Developers are users, too - they
deserve tools that are every bit as polished as graphic artists,
desktop publishers, and movie producers (to name a few).
If iMovie suddenly failed because a movie had a comma in its' name,
would that be acceptable?
Why should Xcode be held to a lower standard than iMovie (or iTunes, or ... )?
Do you have to be some UNIX geek power guru just to utilize Xcode?
Nope, but at least a little knowledge of what is going on under the
hood can often come in handy.
I agree. It does.
(It was in fact a command line that the original poster pasted into
his question. And it is only by seeing that command that we can see
the problem. Is this ideal? Not really.)
Where did he "get" that command line?
Xcode generated it. He *didn't* write it.
There is a large community of folks that are actively porting open
source projects to the Mac, and not using Xcode projects at all to
do so.
Sure. What does that have to do with the OP? or Xcode?
Check out the "fink" and "macports" communities. There are nearly
800 command line executable programs in the /usr/bin directory on my
machine, most of which can perform some task that can help me get
work done. Leveraging these resources does require at least some
rudimentary agility with command line execution.
Again, what does this have to do with Xcode?
So, Xcode is really just a shim that tries to shield the average
developer from a huge otherworld, and it occasionally has a few
"cracks" in it, through which glimpses can be seen.
Chris - do you wish to comment on this? Is this the belief of the Xcode team?
If a large majority of developers can become productive faster by
using Xcode, than by using the more traditional UNIXie workflows,
then Apple has done a good job.
Rather than "just a shim", Xcode is an IDE, an "Integrated
Development Environment", and what the OP was seeing was a
_failure_of_integration.
You can take the traditional UNIX approach, and _blame_the_user_ (and
make no mistake, that's what you did, as in "Don't name your files
that way" ), or your can say "This doesn't work as well as it could
have - how can we make it better?"
But again, the world is bigger than Xcode/GNU, and Apple could never
possibly put a happy GUI face over every command line utility, or
open source app.
I don't care that Xcode uses command line tools - to me that's an
implementation detail, and, IMHO, appears to be an inferior means of
integration to previous IDEs that ran on the Mac. Xcode should be
(and is not) a no-compromises, best of breed IDE. Whether or not it
actually can be such an IDE using the current approach is an
interesting question - but that's for anther thread.
As for Apple "put(-ting) a happy GUI face over every command line
utility, or open source app" - you're just trying to confuse the
issue. Apple wrote Xcode. They ship a custom version of gcc, ld, etc.
These are not just some random "command line tools", these are
programs that Apple has taken and modified, and called their own. The
copy of gcc on my system identifies itself as "gcc version 4.0.1
(Apple Inc. build 5465)".
It is quite beneficial to be able to get around in both command
line, and GUI realms, and know when to use which tool for the job.
No argument there - but again, Xcode is not a command-line tool, and
claiming otherwise is just misdirection.
--
-- Marshall
Marshall Clow Idio Software <mailto:email@hidden>
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed,
the hands acquire shaking, the shaking becomes a warning.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion.
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