Hey all.

I've just moved to Mac OSX development after about 5-ish years building software on Windows (XP-Win7). Given my background in C++, I decided to start developing with Carbon using the text "Learning Carbon" from Apple.

Anyways, my question is with regards to XCode (Version 3.2). I notice that sometimes when I try to run an app from within the XCode IDE (Command + R), XCode seems to run out of memory and my application lags or crashes. Due to this, I prefer to compile my app in XCode, then execute it externally in finder.

However, I'm now confused between the 'build' function (Command + B) and the 'compile' function (Command + K). Can someone clarify whats the difference between these?

Thanks every1.

The Compile command compiles one file. The Build command does everything needed to create the build product, which is usually an application, but it depends on the project you're writing. Some things the Build command does include compiling every file in your project that needs compiling, linking to libraries and frameworks, copying files (like nib files) to the application bundle, and creating an executable. In most cases you should use the Build command. The only reason to use the Compile command is to check for syntax errors in a single source code file.

Regarding your problem running your app in Xcode, quitting and restarting Xcode may solve your problem temporarily. If your Mac has 1 or 2 GB of RAM, installing more RAM would help. Running apps in Xcode works fine for me on a Mac with 4 GB of RAM.

I would suggest learning Cocoa instead of Carbon. The Learning Carbon book you have is ancient. Apple stopped including Carbon project templates in Xcode. There are many more books and resources for Cocoa programmers than for Carbon programmers. Objective-C is not that difficult to learn if you know C++. The following article contains more information on getting started with Mac development:

Getting Started with Mac Programming