The Really Small Software Company software: development: rpm
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RPM was written in response to some of the criticisms surrounding the quality of development tools on RISC OS and although it does not pretend to be the ultimate application generation tool, it was hoped that it would go some way towards making programs easier to write.

RPM has now been superceeded by Sourcery.

The Make utility supplied with the Acorn C/C++ development suite allows the programmer to specify the code and libraries that make up a project. RPM also allows the resources that make up an application to be specified and maintained. All code and resources are accessed through RPM so there is no more searching through directories to find a piece of code.

RPM splits projects into different types.

Applications are normally RISC OS WIMP applications. As well as source code they have a number of resources associated with them such as a Messages file or window Templates.

Libraries are pieces of code that can be grouped together into useful blocks. They are not tied to any one application and may be used many times. For example, you might have a dates library that is used to manipulate dates in a number of different ways.

Utilities are like applications except they don't have any resources. They are programs that will most likely be invoked from the command line. An example of a utility is the C compiler.

Classes are C++ specific. They may perhaps be thought of as an object oriented version of libraries. Using the dates example above, you would have a date object on which a number of actions could be performed.

Requirements

26 bit
26 bit only		 3.1x
RISC OS 3.1x+		 4Mb
4Mb or more

The following software is required

  • A compiler of some sort (eg gcc/Acorn C/C++)
  • A linker of some sort (eg link/drlink)
  • BorderUtil module if RISC OS 3.1

The following are also recommended:

  • An ALF generator of some sort (eg libfile/makealf)
  • DDEUtils module
  • A template editor (eg FormEd/TemplEd)
  • Programmers Reference Manuals

Download

RPM
  Version Size Date Notes
Archive 1.23 289K 04-Jun-2003 Fixed a problem under RISC OS 4 which caused the first known project to appear many times in the project windows. Relinked against OSLib 6.01.

Manual
  Version Size Date
PDF 1.23 331K 04-Jun-2003

An application capable of displaying PDF files can be downloaded here.
Application and Library projects
Application and Library projects
Code and resources for a project
Code and Resources for a project
Setting preferences
Setting preferences