Mac OS X Leopard - ARCAism

Imagine if, when you bought your car, the trunk came fully loaded with every tool you needed
to fix and maintain it. Not just a simple screwdriver and ratchet set, but the same specialized
computer-driven data analysis and optimization tools used by professional mechanics. Believe it
or not, this is the way computers used to be.
When the seed that would sprout into Apple was planted in Steve Jobs’s parents’ garage in
1976, it was part of a greater movement embodied by Silicon Valley’s Homebrew Computer
Club. Unlike the behemoths being developed by the slick suits down at IBM, the computers built
by these hobbyist hackers were not meant to simply be operated. Rather, they were meant to be
programmed, and by mere mortals.
Indeed, third-party software companies hadn’t been invented yet, so even people who didn’t
know how to program still wrote their own programs, thanks to books and magazines with
pages and pages of computer code that had to be typed verbatim. Even when software became
something you simply bought and used, early personal computers were expected to come with
the tools necessary to program them.
Yet somehow, as computer use became widespread, computer programming as an everyman
skill faded until computers were considered nothing more than machines meant to run prepurchased
software. Now, it’s not uncommon to spend thousands of dollars on the tools necessary
to develop software on a personal computer.
Apple, however, true to its homebrew legacy, includes its development tools, for free, with
every copy of Mac OS X. The day you become a Mac user you’ve also gained the potential to be
a Mac programmer, complete with a fully stocked toolbox.
Apple Developer Connection
CHAPTER
Mac OS X Development:
The Tools
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If you’re thinking of developing for the Mac, you should join the club, literally. The Apple Developer
Connection (ADC) is Apple’s official online resource for all things development. Before
even installing Xcode, you should check it out online: http://developer.apple.com.
Aside from being the place to get up-to-the-minute information about the whys and wherefores
of writing software on the Mac, ADC membership provides you with downloads and
updates on all the tools you need: Xcode, documentation, example code, and software development
kits for everything under the sun. It also gives you access to the Bug Reporter, but more on
that later. Best of all, it’s free.
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