Interest in a new code archive?

[cy384]

For modern development, it's usually pretty easy to find code examples. Stuff like stack overflow, online documentation, and github code search make most practical information very easy to find.

In the classic Mac era, there were a few sources of code I can think of:

* Apple SDKs and examples, either via FTP or CDs
* Apple documentation (Inside Macintosh etc.), mostly as PDFs or hard copy books
* Various third party books and textbooks, often with a CD of example code
* Some open source or free applications
* Magazines such as MacTech, sometimes also with CD archives

It's (mostly) still possible to find these, but they're archived in very disparate ways, and are rarely searchable. I think we're at a point where there is some renewed interest in classic Mac development, but so much information and cultural knowledge is functionally lost that it's hard to get much done without significant effort. Also, more online resources are slowly being lost to entropy and the decreased usability of search engines. I spent days just trying to figure out how to get good random numbers for ssheven! I found some strategies in a very old version of openssl, but figuring that out and finding that code was an adventure.

At a minimum, I would like to make a large pile of searchable code, probably in a git repo. This would at least make it easy to find references to particular function calls and APIs. More sophisticated, modern-style documentation would be great, but I don't think there are enough qualified people with interest in making such a thing happen. There are also significant challenges, like the disparities between 68k and ppc, the many system versions, the hardware diversity over time, compiler compatibility, and so on.

I'd be interested in hearing any thoughts others have about finding code and documentation for classic Mac development, especially if you have any easy ideas for improving the situation.

 

[cheesestraws]

This is a good idea, but I fear it might take quite some curation.

That said, even, as you say, a load of old sample code in a searchable Git repo in a public place would be a major win over the mess of random ISO images that we seem to have at present

 

[rplacd]

Yes, I would! I know there are some packages on the Macintosh Garden that are essentially starter boilerplate packages, and I've been meaning to OCR some of the textbooks available online (e.g. Macintosh Revealed.) I don't have time to start a serious development project, but I'd like to ahve some resources around when I do.

 

[rlawson]

Yes I would especially be interested in what frameworks exist
I know macapp was one but I vaguely remember others that were smaller/easier from way back in the day but after 20+ years as a Java dev I have forgotten everything

I’m picking it back up both as a hobby and to help me brush up on my C/C++

 

[paws]

I've been writing a thing with the MacZoop framework (which I'll release real soon now), I started a small article about it here: rven.se/maczoop. I have a few more notes and I'd also like to add an example project setup for CW5.

All in all I'm quite happy with. I've worked through the PowerPlant tutorials book a few years and I remember feeling a bit overwhelmed by it. PP is probably "better", but I've enjoyed using MacZoop anyway. The code is extremely easy to follow.

I tried to compile my MacZoop project for 68k, but I couldn't get it to work, as far as I can tell because something was borked about my Codewarrior installation. At least the docs for version 2.5.2 says it'll work on any Mac with System 7.0 and later.

 

[rplacd]

The Apprentice series of developer cd-rom/floppy resource disks is wonderful, too – they provide all sorts of examples in Pascal/C/C++ of apps, extensions, desk accessories, etc... they capture Mac development around System 7.

 

[techknight]

The Apprentice series of developer cd-rom/floppy resource disks is wonderful, too – they provide all sorts of examples in Pascal/C/C++ of apps, extensions, desk accessories, etc... they capture Mac development around System 7.

Are those archived anywhere?

 

[rplacd]

Are those archived anywhere?

Yup – search for "Celestin Company" on the Garden, the publisher.

 

[wanderingjew]

I spent quite a bit of time building a Classic development system, and with that comes a gigantic hard drive filled with all the documentation I could find. My 'documentation' folder is about 45GB and includes:

• Apple Developer CDs, from 1990 until 1995. These are all packed into .sit and .iso files, so _not extremely searchable_
• Inside Macintosh CDs, or the online documentation for the books. This comes with an X-Ref Doc Viewer, so it is somewhat searchable
• A dump of the Apple Support FTP site; there's some code in there.
• MacTech vol 1-12, comes with ThinkReference, so it's also searchable
• the Umich FTP archive. It has code and lives locally on my computer
• an InfoMac FTP archive, also has some code.

Apart from the Apprentice series of CDs mentioned above, this is just about all of the resources for Classic programming that still exist. OP really identified a shortcoming in Classic Programming documentation -- yes, the stuff is out there, but is not easily accessible and trapped inside PDFs and ISO files.

This isn't an 'archival' problem, it's a 'librarian' problem. Basically, we need someone who knows what they're doing to go through all these resources and basically build a glossary. The next step after that is just a hyperlink to that specific piece of media, then the project is done.

I'd be interested in discussing this further, because this is not a job for just one person, but there needs to be some sort of standardization of how and where all this data will be indexed.