Which eclipse version to use on a Mac? (Carbon or Cocoa)

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+3 Q:

Which eclipse version to use on a Mac? (Carbon or Cocoa)

When i go to the eclipse website (http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/) there are 3 different versions of eclipse for Mac:

Carbon 32bit
Cocoa 32bit
Cocoa 64bit

I'm confused about why there are three version and which one i should be using. (I'm running OSX 10.5 on a MBP)

+1 A:

Use Cocoa 64bit, you most likely have a 64 bit processor (unless you know you don't).

Carbon is just the old graphical API, it was replaced by Cocoa.

Jeffrey Aylesworth 2009-12-24 04:25:52

So why do they still make Carbon releases? Sentimental reasons?

Laurence Gonsalves 2009-12-24 04:27:34

@Laurence: Older codebase that hasn't been completely phased out yet?

Chuck 2009-12-24 04:41:10

The Carbon version remains because it has about 20 person-years of development and testing time put into it, so it's very solid. It is deprecated, though. Critical bugs will be looked at, but all active development is being done on the Cocoa version.

Scott K. 2009-12-24 04:41:48

Using 64bit on 10.5 with Java 5 is a waste of resources. There's very little reason to do that. Read more here: http://blog.zvikico.com/2009/06/eclipse-galileo-for-mac-cocoa-or-carbon.html

zvikico 2009-12-24 04:43:15

@Scott: that "20 person-years of development and testing time" is what's known as a sunk cost. Forcing users to select a release based on criteria they neither know nor care about is counter-productive.

Laurence Gonsalves 2009-12-24 06:07:08

@Laurence, you asked why there's still a Carbon version and I answered it. There are lots of Eclipse customers for whom that level of stability matters more than 64-bit compatibility, which was the primary reason the Cocoa version was done. We definitely want people to use the Cooca version, but having said that, I agree the web site doesn't make it clear.

Scott K. 2009-12-27 17:26:08

+3 A:

I say go with the 32-bit Cocoa version unless you want to use Java 6. The 32-bit version will use less memory, and because the 32-bit 1.5 JVM is the client Java VM it's better tuned for UI apps.

If you want to use Java 6 on 10.5, you must use the 64-bit Cocoa version.

You would think there would be a universal 32/64-bit version, but there isn't. The reason there are multiple versions is due to the SWT's (and Eclipse's for that matter) philosophy of one architecture and one windowing system per application. p2/Equinox can't cope with multiple architectures in the same application.

Scott K. 2009-12-24 04:38:09

I wrote an article about it: http://blog.zvikico.com/2009/10/installing-eclipse-galileo-on-mac-os-x.html

zvikico 2009-12-24 04:41:31

The version of Java used to run Eclipse and the version of Java used for your program does not have to be the same. Unless you have enourmeous, gigantic programs just use the 32-bit Carbon version. It is the oldest and most mature.

Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen 2009-12-24 04:46:18

Tiger is older and more mature than Leopard and Snow Leopard, yet, people upgrade. To the point, the Cocoa UI plays nicer with OS X and has some important advantages. It is also stable and well debugged (get the SR1).

zvikico 2009-12-24 08:23:07

Tiger is older than Leopard, but not more mature. Leopard is the more mature (= has had more development work put into it) of the two.

Chuck 2009-12-24 09:00:02

Depends on what you're using it for. I've been using 32-bit Cocoa on a MBP running 10.5 for most of my development for the past 3 months and haven't had any problems. I wouldn't use Carbon as it is a now deprecated API.

2009-12-24 04:59:34

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Which eclipse version to use on a Mac? (Carbon or Cocoa)

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