From: ggraham@utdallas.edu (Gregory S. Graham)
Subject: SUMMARY: Best C++ for Sun
Organization: Univ. of Texas at Dallas
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 14:21:34 GMT

I would like to thank the following for their input on C++ environments for
the Sun:

    Bob Rose            rose@centerline.com
    Andreas Baecker     andreas.baecker@gmd.de
    Barry A. Warsaw     warsaw@nlm.nih.gov
    T. Roger Kiang      trix@edsel.att.com
    David M. Hansen     hansen@cs.umn.edu
    Clayton Holt        cwh@acpub.duke.edu
    Arto V. Viitanen    av@uta.fi
    Jim Frost           jimf@centerline.com
    Nathan              njs@planet.bt.co.uk
    Sue Lindsey         sue@taumet.com

Here is a summary of the products:


ObjectCenter -
Full development system from CenterLine.  Includes a C++ interpreter and a
graphical debugging environment.  ObjectCenter does run-time error checking
is useful for catching pointer and memory bugs.

Several people mentioned how nice the interpreter was for prototyping and
experimenting.  An object can be tested standalone without writing a "main()".

One user did complain that ObjectCenter was a resource hog and that he had
difficulties getting it to accept some of his code.

ObjectCenter won the two Software Development tool awards in the December 1992
Unix Review's annual awards.


Energize -
Full development system from Lucid.  Includes incremental compiler and linker,
debugger, class browser.  Biggest feature is that it maintains a lot of
information about your code in a database.  This database is used for the
incremental compilation and linking, and also provides information to the
integrated editor, debugger, and class browser.

Several people mentioned that they thought the Lucid product was a great idea,
but I heard from only one person who used this product extensively.  He said 
that it had nice features, was robust, but too slow for his project which had 
over 300 classes and 60,000 lines of code including Motif & X11.


SparcProfessional or SparkWorks C++ (?) -
A full development system from Sun; only available on Solaris 2.0.  Several
people replied that they were interested in it but had not used it.


Sun C++ -
A fast and robust C compiler from Sun.


GNU C++ -
A free C++ compiler that is fast but buggy.


Sniff -
A free C++ tool which includes a class browser.  Available on iamsun.unibe.ch


ObjectWorks\C++ -
A development environment from ParcPlace.  I did get any comments from anyone
who was using this.  One person reported that it had a good feature/price
ratio.


Softbench -
by Hewlett Packard.  Version 3.0 was reported to be a vast improvement over
previous attempts.


Oregon C++ -
A native code C++ compiler and source-level debugger written for C++, and is
now handled by TauMetric Corporation.  It is available on a number of
platforms.  TauMetric also has a windowed debugger/browser for Sparc.



We have decided on ObjectCenter.  One reason is that it was the only product
about which we received several good reports from actual users.  The 
interpreter and run-time error checking are attractive to us.  Also,
ObjectCenter has been out for a while, where Energize is a fairly new.  The
awards from Unix Review was added confirmation that we weren't getting a loser.

We are new in both the C++ and Sun worlds.  We were given authorization to buy
a nice development system so given our ignorance, we chose what seemed to be
the safest choice.  Energize seemed to have some nice features, but the bad
reports we got scared us off.

Thanks again for all of the help.

-- 

Greg Graham                                ggraham@utdallas.edu

Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++