[NTLK] In layman's terms... (was: Developer news)

[Victor Rehorst]

We're making updates to development tools so that software for NewtonOS 
can be written on modern operating systems.

Essentially, putting together what is called a "build system" in 
software developer parlance: a collection of all the programs needed to 
translate source code that humans write to some machine-readable form of 
instructions that computers execute - the process of /compiling/ software.

Without such a build system that runs on modern operating systems, one 
must have a Classic MacOS environment to run the original Newton 
development tools (Newton Toolkit, and MPW with the Newton C++ tools) 
just to compile NewtonScript or C++ code. Whether physical or emulated, 
having to go back to this environment just to compile some code is a 
tedious, manual, error-prone job - three things all software developers 
/hate/. Having the build system be completely automated is the goal, the 
fewer dependencies the better.

This is really important for Einstein development in particular - part 
of Einstein's code runs inside the "virtual Newton" device. That part 
has to be compiled with the Newton C++ tools.  Matthias came up with a 
way to run those tools on modern computers without needing a Classic 
MacOS setup.

-V

On 2020-03-06 5:19 p.m., Doug wrote:

> I love hearing the progress, but the technical and succinct summaries make
> understanding of it hard to understand. Don't slow down the development
> process, but please pull me aside and give me a simplified explanation of
> what you're doing every now and then. ;-) It's fascinating, regardless.
>