ParcPlace Systems, Inc. * 999 E. Arques Ave. * Sunnyvale, CA 94086 * Tel: (408)481-9090 * Sales: 1-800-759-7272 * Fax: (408) 481-9095 * email: info@parcplace.com
I use Objectworks\C++ occasionally. It has a nice class and
function hierarchy browser, and a nice debugger. I used Saber
C++ some time ago, so my recollection on it isn't up to date.
They do have far better run time checks, and that can be very
valuable in producing high quality code. The ObjectCenter folks
also have sent me some material on an experimental facility they
may or may not support for checking for memory leaks, a critical
item again in production software. If this works, it could represent
a substantial savings over buying Purify's memory leak product
(which is a very high quality product).
I'm not overly impressed with the Objectworks environment, but the
(few) tools it has work nicely.
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I have used Objectworks extensively over the past 8-9 months.
I was introduced to both Objectworks and Saber-C++ (now known
as ObjectCenter) simultaneously. At the time, Objectworks was
a clear preference. I had an opportunity to take a look at
ObjectCenter about 1 month ago. I was still not overly impressed
with it (compared to Objectworks). My chief complaint has to do
with the debugger interface. ObjectCenter's debugger seems to be
little more than a thin wrapper around a dbx-like command line
debugger. Whereas, Objectworks has a very intuitive point-and-
click style debugger environment.
On the other hand, Objectworks does not yet support templates
(due in the next major release). Objectworks also does not
cooperate fully with whatever window manager you are using.
It creates one large window, which covers the whole screen and
creates it's own sub-windows by tiling within the primary window.
This, of course, is a result of it having been written in Smalltalk.
Supposedly, their next release will support separately managed
windows under X.
On the whole, I found Objectworks more intuitive to use.
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