James Duncan Davidson is the original author of Apache Tomcat and Apache Ant. He was also one of the architects of the Java 2 Enterprise Edition Platform and wrote several versions of the Servlet API and the Java API for XML Processing specifications.
Despite this rare pedigree, Davidson hosted a beginner"s session on the developer tools that come free with Mac OS X to an assembled group of around 50 seasoned UNIX and Linux programmers at O"Reilly"s Mac OS X Conference this afternoon.
"When developing Mac OS X, we hoped that they would let us expose the UNIX or release developer tools," Davidson said. "Well, Apple let us do both."
Mac OS X has three layers in which an application may run: Classic for legacy applications, Carbon -- a hybrid layer that allows existing programs to gain many of Mac OS X" features quickly -- and Cocoa, the objective C based API that unleashes the full potential of Mac OS X.
To create applications on the Classic Mac OS or in Carbon, programmers needed to use some form of Integrated Development Environment such as CodeWarrior.
Well, to create applications for cocoa on Mac OS X, Apple created its own IDE called Project Builder. Just as Darwin is based on an open foundation, Davidson said that Project Builder is based on open standards, including the OCC compiler, the GDB debugger and CVS integration.