Re: [Swarm-Support] Xcode as IDE for swarm: how-to? -> Swarm usability (OT)

[Jurgen van der Pol]

Bill, LS,

> > I've got swarm up & running on a G3 iMac running Panther (10.3.2). 
> > This is probably a silly question (maybe already covered but I'm 
> > unable to properly search the archives as Mail does not eat the raw 
> > .mbox?): has anyone got any ideas/experience/how-to/pointers as to 
> > how I should go about using/setting up (the wonderfully new to me) 
> > Xcode as the IDE to develop new swarm applications?
> It is very good question.  How you would you like to work on it?

The question has its origin in -my- lack of both Unix and Objective-C 
skills. I'm a long-time Mac/GUI-head & stopped active programming years 
ago at university (TurboPascal, which had an IDE, btw). Hence I grope 
*desperately* for familiar hand-holds. Being utterly non-Unix, all this 
terminal stuff is a hard, blind landing (it's getting slightly better, 
tho). Had it in 2000 during the first iteration of my PhD (which 
included a trip to SFI, btw) & wanting to use swarm. Now, in 2004, it's 
deja-vu all over: I still need swarm as main tool in my revamped PhD, 
and it's still as frustrating as before to use it. Thus, a Mac-based 
GUI-IDE that will help me in building, debugging, browsing classes, 
colouring the code and so on sounds like utter & sheer bliss to me. 
Yes, the 'nix heads wo know their ObjC & have years of swarm under 
their belts will probably say: why bother? Got gcc, gdb, editors etc. 
What me worry. Me, I'm not that proficient and I find it utterly 
frustrating to waste time on figuring out obvious Unix trivialities 
like 'chmod +x Makefile' (such after figuring out the whole concept of 
makefiles to begin with), let alone begin to understand ObjC/swarm code 
without some help (like colour-differentiated code in an IDE edit 
window). All my systemic inexperience and thus lack of usability stands 
heavily & frustratingly in the way of what I want to do and for which 
you guys have intended swarm: to build models & do research on/with 
them. Then again, all that's -my- problem, indeed, so 'nuf whine here 
(however I cannot possibly feel that I'm all alone in this...).


> Basically Swarm uses a makefile build system.  You will see in 
> $SWARMHOME/etc/swarm/ a number of makefiles generated as part of the 
> library

I understand the concept, but the content of it is as yet black magic 
for me.


> So where does Xcode come in?  Xcode is a full blown development 
> environment.  It normally uses its own build system.  By setting up a 
> project and adding the source files and necessary libraries to it, you 
> enable Xcode to do what the makefiles do in Swarm.

Precisely. This is what I'd love to have.


> At a minimal level, you can get Xcode to drive the makefile build 
> system.  Just create a new project for a 'Standard Tool'.  All it 
> needs in the target is a single 'Shell Script Build Phase' which 
> invokes make with the makefile.

Ok, I see what you mean.


> Why bother? Xcode does a nice job of indexing your files and relating 
> to a CVS server.  It can also help with managing source files in other 
> ways.  After building it enables you to use the class browser on your 
> code.
> However, Xcode has a heap of other goodies: speculative recompilation, 
> distributed builds, zero link, fix and continue etc..  If you want 
> these

"Precisely!"


> to work then you need to use the Xcode build system.  To do this you 
> need to set up a conventional 'Standard Tool' project referencing all 
> the source files and the relevant Swarm libraries and headers.  It is 
> my intention at some point to create a template for such a project 
> that can be dropped into Xcode.  If you would like to do it, it would 
> be very helpful.

I'd love to, but I'm already in over my head in understanding the 
basics of Unix/ObjC/swarm, let alone understand how this could be done. 
I'm the apprentice in the magician's cave, and dare not touch (yet!).


> Finally a WARNING.  Do not try to use Xcode with the existing Swarm 
> sources.

*Sigh*. But thanks for the warning.

Cheers,
Jurgen.

P.S. Want my (probably very OT here, for which I apologise) 0.02c? Want 
swarm to become a 'mainstream' ABM tool? Then it needs to become a 
stand-alone software product. Like iThink or Stella over in the System 
Dynamics corner. Otherwise the (bizz) community at large will not play 
around with it. But then again, this may not be what 'we' want. Just 
being able to build swarm models though the OSX/Xcode 'window' would 
however be a *major* usability step forward IMHO. Of course I can 
understand where swarm is coming from, that is it a software library 
and not a encapsulated, stand-alone program per se (oh how I which it 
were, like StarLogo). That it is geared at academic researchers, not 
business tinkerers (not me; my clients). I can also understand that we 
have invariably a lack of resources, and that OSX and Xcode and 
Interface Builder are all fairly fresh & new (not taking NeXT into 
account). But, we now even have the G5, Xgrid and an example of a very 
cheap clustered supercomputer at Virginia tech! So, all in all I'd say 
that Apple today does a pretty good job in providing the 'tools for 
research'.