Mac Forum / Programming / Mac Programming / January 2006

Also the CPlusTest unit testing framework in Xcode 2.1 and later,
though not the CPlusTestRig unit testing rig.

To write unit tests for ppc64 code you'll need to build a command-line
tool that gets the default test suite and runs the tests within it, and
compile your tests and the code under test into that (referred to as
"independent tests" in the Unit Testing Guide).  You can't build a
bundle containing ppc64 unit tests and run the tests in it with
CPlusTestRig.

 -- Chris

I suspect that the decision to move to Intel effectively killed off the
nascent ppc64 development efforts at Apple. And sadly this means that a
full 64 bit OS X is now some years further away than it might otherwise
have been.

Paul

Actually,

the reasoning Apple developers gave at the time was that they simply
didn't see a benefit for end-user applications to go 64-bit. The main
reason Apple supports 64-bit computing is to get into the scientific
market, where they need huge number-crunching (not as in "long long",
but as in "lots of numbers" that take GBs of RAM just to load). In those
cases it's rare that they use anything else than command-line tools,
simply because every single bit of performance in doing such huge
calculations (which may take weeks to complete) counts.

There never was an announcement I'm aware of that claimed they would
move the whole GUI and everything 64-bit. In fact, there are tech-notes
around somewhere that explain how to have a GUI written in 32-bit and a
64-bit tool doing the actual number-crunching or huge data processing
talk with one another correctly.

Paul Russell wrote:

I wouldn't be that pessimistic. It looks like Apple is waiting for
64-bit Intel chips to come out that have the characteristics they want,
before they'll update the "pro" line (in hardware). That's why there's
no PowerMac yet. After all, Apple would become the laughingstock of the
industry if it had to move the PowerMac back down to 32-bit now.

(The Powerbook was stuck with 32-bit anyway, so there it's not a
problem, and the iMac was consumer to begin with, so the downgrade from
G5 will probably only annoy people that Apple didn't want buying that
machine anyway...)

But since those chips aren't far off, I'd guess Apple are continuing
their 64-bit efforts on schedule. But you're right in that they'll now
be aimed at Intel, not at the PPC platform, in all likelihood. Though I
haven't heard anything about Apple having any short-term plans of making
Cocoa or Carbon 64-bit. Long-term seems certain, unless 64-bit goes out
of fashion, but that doesn't seem likely at this point.

But then again, I'm a software developer so take my hardware-related
knowledge with a grain of salt.

Cheers,
-- Uli
http://www.zathras.de