Computer Engineering student about to switch

I ordered an iBook which should be here sometime late this week and my plan is to keep the iBook and my PC laptop for a period of one month and at the end of the month, pick a winner and sell the loser. Anyways, I am very nervous about trying to use a different OS and CPU architecture other than the "standard" when I am in an academic program which uses the computer inside and out.

For starters, how about coding? I write in C++ for most of my classes and am currently using Visual Studio. How will writing code in C++ work on the Mac with I guess xCode? Will my code be identicle to how it would look on a PC? Will the transition from VS to xCode be just like the transition between two different PC compilers, or am I in for more of a headache?

I guess coding is at this time the only specific example at this time that I can think of which would present an issue. Of course there are other issues such as trying to interface "weird hardware" (for example a device with a microcontroller and a breadboard) and software which may be PC-only.

Is there anyone else here in my situation that would like to comment on their experiences?

As a Computer Engineering student, you should not be afraid of other operating systems. you should wellcome them. Since in the real world, you will need to be able to adapt to any operating system. As for coding you will need to be open in that area also.

Absolutely, as a computer engineer, I need to be open to different platforms and such. However, the key word here is computer engineering student. If my professor tells me I need to do something that is somehow PC-based or write code that, if I hand in the source, can be compiled on a PC, I really don't think that sort of attitude would cut it.

RChickenMan said:

I ordered an iBook which should be here sometime late this week and my plan is to keep the iBook and my PC laptop for a period of one month and at the end of the month, pick a winner and sell the loser. Anyways, I am very nervous about trying to use a different OS and CPU architecture other than the "standard" when I am in an academic program which uses the computer inside and out.

For starters, how about coding? I write in C++ for most of my classes and am currently using Visual Studio. How will writing code in C++ work on the Mac with I guess xCode? Will my code be identicle to how it would look on a PC? Will the transition from VS to xCode be just like the transition between two different PC compilers, or am I in for more of a headache?

I guess coding is at this time the only specific example at this time that I can think of which would present an issue. Of course there are other issues such as trying to interface "weird hardware" (for example a device with a microcontroller and a breadboard) and software which may be PC-only.

Is there anyone else here in my situation that would like to comment on their experiences?

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Yes, there are some pretty significant differences when writing C++ code for Mac than for PC. Most environments may be c99, but you're still going to see some pretty obvious differences, especially when it comes to platform-specific optimization, and the Altvc interface. My guess is most of the students are going to be using x86 machines w/ either Linux or Windows, and a PPC Mac will really just complicate things for you, and your professor. I really can't think of a single reason of why it would be a good idea to use a Mac in a C++ class.

Well, I'm not switching because I think it would be better for C++, I'm basically switching out of curiousity and making sure that I would be okay with C++. I'm getting some mixed opinions, many of the posts in the developers forums are saying that, for the most part, you can compile the same source in xCode and Visual Studio.

it sounds to me that if you are concerned about writing code but you still want to switch. you can get VPC for Mac and then use visual studio on your Mac via VPC

falltime said:

Yes, there are some pretty significant differences when writing C++ code for Mac than for PC. Most environments may be c99, but you're still going to see some pretty obvious differences, especially when it comes to platform-specific optimization, and the Altvc interface. My guess is most of the students are going to be using x86 machines w/ either Linux or Windows, and a PPC Mac will really just complicate things for you, and your professor. I really can't think of a single reason of why it would be a good idea to use a Mac in a C++ class.

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I don't agree with this at all.

Optimization and instruction sets (including AltiVec) are largely irrelevant when writing in any higher-level language. If it was an assembly class, he'd be in for an interesting time (Though he'd learn twice as much as anyone else in the class!) but for C++, I would expect no difference whatsoever.

The only issue I could foresee would be byte ordering (big vs. little endian) but that's something that an EE student should learn to deal with, anyway.

RChickenMan said:

Well, I'm not switching because I think it would be better for C++, I'm basically switching out of curiousity and making sure that I would be okay with C++. I'm getting some mixed opinions, many of the posts in the developers forums are saying that, for the most part, you can compile the same source in xCode and Visual Studio.

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It really depends on your classes. I'm a computer science student myself. In my case, some classes require me to do all of the homeworks on Visual Studio, other classes on GCC. GCC is what you use to program on MacOS X. Some of the classes will need you to work on Linux as well.

So, don't sell your PC, keep it.

Im in a similar boat I have a double major CS/Electrical Engineering. The dean of engineering (also my circuits and networks teacher) has a 17 inch powerbook and he loves it. as he put it "Straight BSD with a pretty interface" He has GCC installed on his. Compiled code isnt portable from the PPC to an x86 but the code should be. Theres a great enough layer of abstraction in C++ where unless you are writing some tricky things the code itself will be portable. Another reason it may not be is if you use some libraries on the mac that arent installed on the PCs at your school. For the most part this wont be an issue because most programming classes deal with standard libraries. Also since you already have a PC laptop, Im assuming you already know how to use windows fairly well. 1 month seems like a short time to get acqauinted with a whole new operating system. I would give it a bit longer to make your decision.

FYI-None of the instructors at our school like VS.NET so we normally use editor and compiler or if we use an IDE we use Eclipse, Ive used VS.NET long enough to know that it can be very finnicky so, code may or may not be cut and paste between mac and VS.

fearlessfreap24 said:

it sounds to me that if you are concerned about writing code but you still want to switch. you can get VPC for Mac and then use visual studio on your Mac via VPC

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VPC will be one of the first pieces of software I install, as I have a liscence through my school. I just assumed that doing it all on Visual Studio through VPC would be impractical.

technologist said:

I don't agree with this at all.

Optimization and instruction sets (including AltiVec) are largely irrelevant when writing in any higher-level language. If it was an assembly class, he'd be in for an interesting time (Though he'd learn twice as much as anyone else in the class!) but for C++, I would expect no difference whatsoever.

The only issue I could foresee would be byte ordering (big vs. little endian) but that's something that an EE student should learn to deal with, anyway.

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Irrelevant??? While, I have absolutely no clue what kind of C++ class he is going through, it is very likely that at some point through the semester/year he will probably have to start accessing external libraries/api's (which do include Alvc optimization - vectorization is, and CAN be done within the C++ code.), which will be really put him on the spot when the vast majority of the class is using Windows based PCs. Also Most Mac C/C++ compilers are supporting intrinsics for direct access to Alvc instructions... which is hardly less important, but would come into play if the professor was also trying to work with users running PC's with 'nix os's. If it was really as easy as just recompiling the code for a different platform, mac users would hardly have to worry about getting their favorite PC hits ported to Mac... but it really isnt that simple. I highly doubt he will be writing a game, or advanced cc app but I didn't say he couldn’t do it, I just said it would make things more complicated.

Unless, he is going towards some graduate level degree, or takes graphics programming classes there will be almost no problems. Problems with porting games is developers use libraries that are non existent on mac, and when the engine is designed it uses architecture specific (i call them hacks) code that break it for other archs. I cannot imagine a project where his code would not be portable with minimal work. My best friend is a lead programmer for fedex he uses a 15" powerbook to code on and he has no problems. (and fedex's tracking systems use a lot of C#) He programs in C,C++, Java, Perl, C# and a few others.

prodikal said:

Unless, he is going towards some graduate level degree, or takes graphics programming classes there will be almost no problems. Problems with porting games is developers use libraries that are non existent on mac, and when the engine is designed it uses architecture specific (i call them hacks) code that break it for other archs. I cannot imagine a project where his code would not be portable with minimal work. My best friend is a lead programmer for fedex he uses a 15" powerbook to code on and he has no problems. (and fedex's tracking systems use a lot of C#) He programs in C,C++, Java, Perl, C# and a few others.

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falltime said:

I have absolutely no clue what kind of C++ class he is going through, it is very likely that at some point through the semester/year he will probably have to start accessing external libraries/api's

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falltime said:

I highly doubt he will be writing a game, or advanced cc app

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Same here. I read too fast I thought you were saying the opposite, my bad. :blind:

Heh, this is funny reading all of these posts that refer to me in the third person... Anyways, I'm just a sophomore as of now, my c++ class is called "data structures and algorithms" so I highly doubt that all of that confusing stuff you guys are talking about applies. The only libraries I really use that I can think of off the top of my head are the iostream, iomanip, fstream, string, sstream, stl, etc. I had to do some GUI stuff in a programming class last semester that used wxwidgets and a bunch of other strange libraries, and of course I assume doing any of that stuff on a mac is just out of the question.

http://www.wxwindows.org/

wxwidgets is portable, I made a nice gui for subversion that worked on my gentoo system and my xp system.