How to work with a Mac on a OpenSource project? (Tutorial?)

Question

Hi guys!

I'm really interested in participating as a new developer in an OpenSource project. My Problem now is - what is the best way to participate with a Mac on an OSS Project? (Without using a Virtual Machine or DualBoot.)

As there is no usual apt-get system, what is the best way of working on such an existing project? Would you use Xcode or Eclipse or something else completely?

The setup for all those steps (Building, linking libraries etc.) has always been the part that never worked properly for me. Is there a tutorial which explains how to set the stuff up properly with these IDEs?

Thank you!

Answer 1

I can give you a very simple recipe.

1. Pick a Java open source project.
2. Install Eclipse on MacOS.
3. Go to work.

No libraries, no linking, no fuss, no muss, no bother.

If you want to work in C or C++, the question is going to be whether you are the only person. For a project that has already been ported to mac, you just do what the others are doing. You run 'configure', and all is well, and you use and editor to edit and gdb to debug.

Answer 2

Fink is a package system for Mac, it gives you most of what apt-get does on a Linux system.

Answer 3

Xcode is the best choice, I think, irrespective of project