Rick Grehan
Watcom C/C++ has many things programmers will like. But its integrated development environment is best described as spartan. Version 10.5 changes that with the addition of Blue Sky's Visual Programmer.
Watcom C/C++ 10.5 continues the compiler's tradition of multiplatform development support. Although it is still Intel-CPU-specific, Watcom C/C++ can create 16- and 32-bit applications for Windows, DOS, and OS/2. It can also create 32-bit AutoCAD applications and NetWare NLMs.
With 10.5, Watcom links the Visual Programmer into the compiler's integrated development environment.
Visual Programmer
provides rapid application-building capabilities, similar to those in Visual Basic, to C++. You build an application by defining windows, populating the win
dows with pushbuttons, scrollbars, and other elements, and attaching attributes and actions to the various objects. Visual Builder then generates MFC-based source code. As you build your application in Visual Programmer, it "back fills" the Watcom project with the appropriate files.
Watcom's previous version allowed you to regulate consumption of disk space by optionally keeping the help files on the CD; all other files had to go on your hard disk. With version 10.5, you can run most everything from the CD, freeing up lots of disk space at the expense of slightly slower execution. I opted for the "run from CD" choice at installation time (freeing up more than 30 MB) and collided with one of the few bugs in the system. Apparently, the executable copy of the 32-bit C compiler is corrupted on some copies of the CD-ROM. A small batch file that I downloaded from Watcom's BBS fixed the problem. Watcom says that release 10.6 (which will be out by the time you read this) will correct that problem. It will be av
ailable to version 10.5 owners at no charge.
Watcom has also added the Watcom Infobase CD. It contains (among other things) technical tips from Watcom's support hotline, faxline, and CompuServe forum. This enormous frequently-asked-questions file is basically a core dump of Watcom's Technical Support communications. Consequently, there's lots of non-C/C++ information on the CD.Performance of generated executables (which is among the best) appears unchanged. I recompiled the BYTEmark benchmark using version 10.5 and ran the program on our baseline 90-MHz Pentium machine. The results varied by less than 5 percent from scores I obtained using a version 10.0-generated executable on the same machine.
Watcom C/C++ 10.5 is priced at $350; owners of previous versions can upgrade for $129; a competitive upgrade is $199. Contact Watcom (Waterloo, Ontario) at (800) 265-4555 or (519) 886-3700; fax (519) 747-4971; on the Web,
http://
www.watcom.com
.
screen_link (67 Kbytes)
The major new feature in Watcom's latest C/C++ is the addition of visual programming tools.
Watcom C/C++ 10.5 Gets Visual
