Are the QNX 6.2 tools really this bad?

QNX Newsgroups (Archives) qdn.public.devtools
1

What is the overall impression of the quality of the QNX Momentics
development tools (hosted on QNX and/or Windows)?

I’m working with the evaluation version of the QNX Momentics Professional
Edition tools hosted on QNX. My platform is an 800Mhz EBX Pentium III with
256 megs of RAM, hard-disk, and ethernet.

Installation was a breeze and the OS seems to run well on the box. From all
accounts QNX has a wonderful little RTOS. The development tools are a
completely different story. I’ve applied the latest patches (6.2a) and am
still having the following problems:

  1. Can’t save source files from the IDE.

I have to use VI. Most of the time (not always), the IDE recognizes that
the file has been update and then re-compiles.

  1. Can’t debug my application.

Haven’t tried GDB from the command-line yet (it probably works) but the IDE
give me an error reading an address.

  1. This thing is slow. It takes forever for the IDE to come up. Any kind
    of redraw and opening/closing of dialogs is slow.

  2. Can’t access the profiler or trace tools.

This could simply be a case of ignorance, I’m trying to make my way through
the IDE documentation, but as described above, I’m going nowhere, fast.

Comments?

-Michael

2
  1. Can’t save source files from the IDE.

Make sure your hostname is in /etc/hosts. This is a known problem and
has been fixed for 6.2.1.

I have to use VI. Most of the time (not always), the IDE recognizes that
the file has been update and then re-compiles.

Generally you have to use the Refresh option from the right-click menu
on a project if you are editing outside of the IDE itself.

  1. This thing is slow. It takes forever for the IDE to come up. Any kind
    of redraw and opening/closing of dialogs is slow.

Try disabling the jit to speed up startup, and the other issues with the
speed of the UI on Photon are being addressed. Things under 6.2.1 will be
faster and as time goes on and the SWT (Java UI bindings used in Eclipse)
on Photon matures, it will get better and better.

chris

\

Chris McKillop <cdm@qnx.com> “The faster I go, the behinder I get.”
Software Engineer, QSSL – Lewis Carroll –
http://qnx.wox.org/

3
  1. Can’t save source files from the IDE.


    Make sure your hostname is in /etc/hosts. This is a known problem and
    has been fixed for 6.2.1.


    I have to use VI. Most of the time (not always), the IDE recognizes
    that
    the file has been update and then re-compiles.


    Generally you have to use the Refresh option from the right-click menu
    on a project if you are editing outside of the IDE itself.

    \
  2. This thing is slow. It takes forever for the IDE to come up. Any
    kind
    of redraw and opening/closing of dialogs is slow.


    Try disabling the jit to speed up startup, and the other issues with the
    speed of the UI on Photon are being addressed. Things under 6.2.1 will be
    faster and as time goes on and the SWT (Java UI bindings used in Eclipse)
    on Photon matures, it will get better and better.

chris
The problem is if your using QNX NOW you pay either $4000 or $8000 to

develop software for it, and you get public domain tools that are comparable
to a “fixer upper” for a new car price. If you want any updates after
paying $8000 for free ware you have to pay more, because you don’t get ANY
updates for that $8K. I had a lot of good experiences in dealing with QNX
when my company was using QNX 4 but I find myself defending QNX to
management too often now. Management expects to get alot more for the money
they were asked to pay. A immature product should not be asking a mature
price.