AxoCalculator was developed in MPW Pascal using MacApp and several third party code modules. This may explain why it is larger, and uses more memory than you would expect for a relatively small and simple program. These problems are part of the price you pay when using an object oriented development system. The proponents of object oriented programming claim that there is a favorable trade off between larger code size and generally slower performance on one hand, and faster development and a more sophisticated user interface on the other. My experience with AxoCalculator supports these claims. It was written in about four weeks including this documentation (plus another two weeks for version 1.1). This was a very satisfying experience. On the other hand, learning the intricacies of programming with MacApp took many months while I was working on a separate project. Also, I can not, in all honesty, recommend a development system that takes 5 minutes to compile and link a program on a IIfx. I wonder if Apple will ever rev up MPW ??
The Debugger
My favorite development tool deserves a plug. Without "The Debugger" from Jasik Designs, MPW and MacApp would long ago have stripped me of my remaining sanity. The Debugger has two features which make it particularly valuable. The first is MMU based memory protection which traps many of the memory bugs, that are so common in Mac programming. The second is its incremental build system, which shortens the compile, link cycle from about 5 minutes to a much more acceptable 20-50 seconds, when only small changes are made. A change to an interface still requires a full 5 minute rebuild though.
