CodeWarrior Goes RAD
Volume Number: 15
Issue Number: 5
Column Tag: Tools Of The Trade
by Shelly Kochhar, Metrowerks, Inc.
The first look at CW's RAD Tools
What's New?
CodeWarrior tools have always let programmers rapidly write program code. New
capabilities of the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) now let you quickly
build complete applications by automatically generating the Java rhetoric (the vital
but tedious-to-write skeleton code that binds the application together and provides
basic UI services), so you can concentrate on building the application itself. As
expected of CodeWarrior products, this release includes the flexibility of supporting
multiple languages, platforms and application frameworks.
RADification
For many moons, programmers could quickly write, test, and deploy programs using
CodeWarrior's IDE. But what they always longed for was a set of Rapid Application
Development (RAD) tools-as has been available on other platforms-that would let
them quickly construct a working interface for their programs. Such tools allow the
programmer to craft an application user interface (UI) that would forward any user
event it captures to the appropriate program functions.
The long wait is finally over. CodeWarrior Professional Release 5 provides a set of
RAD tools that let you visually construct an application. The tools automatically
generate code that handle generic initialization functions and manage the drawing of the
UI. Of course, this generated code can be edited to suit your application's specific needs.
In this first release, the RAD tools support Java code development and include the AWT
and Swing classes. Support for PowerPlant and MFC classes will follow in subsequent
versions of CodeWarrior.
The RAD tools automate much of the UI programming processes (i.e. rhetoric) so you
can concentrate on writing the core application code. CodeWarrior's plugin
architecture lets you pick and choose what type of Java program you wish to write. The
plugins in this release let you write Java applications, applets, and Java Beans. The
RAD tools require JDK 1.1.6 or later for Java code development and execution.
Wizards and Builders
The CodeWarrior RAD tools relieve you of the tedium of manually writing boilerplate
code to implement a UI. The tools provide a class-authoring interface which lets you
visually create and edit classes, methods, and data members. The RAD tools
automatically synchronize declarations and definitions as you modify objects. A Class
Wizard walks you through the steps of creating a class, letting you dictate the class'