Editing Macintosh Programmer's Workshop (section)

== Design ==

MPW provided a [[command-line interface|command line]] environment and tools, including [[68k]] and PowerPC [[Assembly language|assembler]]s as well as [[Pascal (programming language)|Pascal]],  [[C (programming language)|C]] and [[C++]] [[compiler]]s. The shell environment is somewhat similar to [[Unix shell]]s in design, but is designed around the Macintosh's character set and [[graphical user interface|GUI]], replacing the usual terminal environment with a "worksheet" interface, allowing the user to select and run arbitrary sections of a shell script or to redo commands with no retyping. In addition, command line tools were commonly provided with a somewhat standardized graphical interface named Commando that provided limited access to the command line capabilities of the program. The [[debugger]]s were not integrated into MPW like most [[Integrated development environment|IDEs]] of today but the language compilers supported the symbolic debugging information file format used by the debugger. MPW supported a source-level debugger called '''SADE''' (Symbolic Application Debugging Environment). SADE was not an MPW Tool, but ran as a separate application with a user interface similar to MPW.

Apple's compilers had some features that were not common on other platforms&mdash;for example, the Pascal compiler was object-oriented, while the C and C++ compilers included support for [[String_(computer_science)#Length-prefixed|length-prefixed strings]] (needed for Pascal-oriented APIs).

Pascal was Apple's original preferred language for Macintosh software development,<ref name="webster198602">{{cite news | url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1986-02/1986_02_BYTE_11-02_Text_Processing#page/n343/mode/2up | title=Programming Tool and the Atari ST | work=BYTE | date=February 1986 | accessdate=9 May 2015 | author=Webster, Bruce | pages=331}}</ref> and MPW was initially released with only Pascal support. A C compiler was released with MPW 2.0. The MPW C compiler was written under contract for Apple by [[Green Hills Software|Greenhills]], a Macintosh-variant of the Green Hills C compiler designed specially for Apple and which was similar to the version that was available for the Lisa Workshop.<ref name="MPWErrorMessages">{{cite web |last1=Lentz |first1=Robert |title=MPW C Error Messages |url=http://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/humor/mpw-c-errors.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150602084116/http://www.ralentz.com/old/mac/humor/mpw-c-errors.html |archive-date=June 2, 2015 |url-status=dead |date=May 15, 1994}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/the-macintosh-programmers-workshop/184408063|title=Dr Dobb's – The Macintosh Programmer's Workshop|date=1 January 1988|access-date=2021-02-21|author=Allen, Dan}}</ref> In addition, the original MPW C compiler was known for its casual and frequently humorous error messages ("we already did this function"),<ref name="MPWErrorMessages"/> as well as occasionally addressing users by name.<ref name="turnOffLights2014">{{cite web|url=http://lists.apple.com/archives/mpw-dev/2014/Jan/msg00007.html|title=Re: Will the last one to leave please turn off the lights?|access-date=2014-05-27|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140528010701/http://lists.apple.com/archives/mpw-dev/2014/Jan/msg00007.html|archive-date=2014-05-28|url-status=dead}}</ref> These quirks were not carried on after the PowerPC transition, when Apple replaced the originals with compilers written by Symantec. Pascal support was no longer provided by the mid-90s due to declining popularity of the language.
MPW was always targeted to a professional audience and was seldom used by hobbyist developers due to the considerable price for the package; by the time it was made freeware it had long since been superseded by offerings from Symantec and [[Metrowerks]], as well as Apple's own development tools inherited from NeXT and distributed for free with OS X. It was also occasionally available as a wrapper environment for third-party compilers, a practice used by both Metrowerks and [[Absoft Fortran Compilers|Absoft]] among others. Apple has officially discontinued further development of MPW and the last version of OS X to run it is 10.4 'Tiger', the last one to support the Classic environment. Apple maintained a web site and [[Electronic mailing list|mailing lists]] that supported the software long after its discontinuation, but that site now redirects to the Xcode page.