This from a reader: Apple (and Xcode) has always pushed Objective C. I realize that the rest of the world didn’t exactly follow along, but XCode sounds like a pretty nice IDE from what I hear (and what many Mac developers are familiar with)- Is there any overlap here? Will one be able to use XCode or Obj C with any of the Intel compilers?Everything you’ve heard about Xcode is true. It is the sweetest IDE in all of Unixdom. Xcode alone is enough to pull developers into the Mac platform.Intel supports Xcode 2.2.1 in the beta and says that integration with Xcode will improve over time. Since Xcode uses gcc as a back end, and Intel matches gcc’s command line syntax, Intel just slides right in. But there will always be ways in which Intel’s OS X tools don’t implement gcc’s Mac-specific features and optimizations. Apple has a hand in gcc. Intel’s compilers do not support Objective-C. The likelihood of this changing in the future is tied to the number of paid members in Apple Developer Connection.I see the absence of Objective-C support in Intel compilers creating an inconvenience rather than a show-stopping problem. Use gcc for user-facing Objective-C code, and use the tools of your choice for everything else. Intel makes it really easy to toggle back and forth between its tools and the platform’s native set. Choose the degree of simplicity and isolation you prefer when integrating code from the two toolsets: Object wrappers, message passing, shared memory or jungle drums. Mac developers will find it’s worth the effort.The point is, not finding Objective-C in Intel’s compilers isn’t a reason not to pick them up. Hell, maybe Apple will resurrect the old Objective-C preprocessor, or dissect gcc to create one (not that either would be easy or, likely, even feasible). Software Development