This idea was hinted at as a tangent in another thread, but I thought
it's worthy enough of consideration to give it its own thread, so here
goes...
Okay, let's decouple CodeWarrior into the IDE and the compiler plugins.
It seems to me what I really like best about CodeWarrior is the
simple, easy to use IDE. The compiler plugins are nice too but
essentially can be dropped and replaced without much effect on the user
experience. Up until now, Metrowerks has had to develop both the IDE
and the many compilers, probably spending most of their money on the
compilers.
Now it's clear that Metrowerks has screwed the pooch with regard to
their compilers. By selling their x86 tools, they have essentially
shot themselves in the foot (and the knee and the chest and the
head...).
But if Metrowerks simply modified their IDE to work with gcc (perhaps
by creating wrappers around the gcc compilers so as to conform to
CodeWarrior's Compiler Plugin API), they could sell the CodeWarrior IDE
rather cheaply (say, $100-$150) and not have to spend any money
developing compiler updates. As the gcc compilers are free, they
should be easily dropped into CodeWarrior to work. We would then be
able to build for PPC and x86 again, and not be out of sync with Xcode.
If this became the new business model, I think it would have a great
chance of success. And I would be a happy CodeWarrior customer again.
Jonathan Hoyle
Eastman Kodak
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