Saber Software Inc of Cambridge, Massachusetts, claims that its Saber-C language programming environment will speed up the development of X Window applications as well as improving the quality of the results. Saber-C has a C interpreter, program checker, dynamic linker, code and data browsers, extensible debugger and graphical user interface, and sits within the Unix development toolkit. A programmer might have open the main interaction window, edit windows, an I/O window for terminal based input and output for the code under development, a data browsing window dispaying complex data structures and their interrelationships, and a cross-reference browser for a view into the function call graph of the program. An X program can also create its own windows on the screen. The tool will load files and libraries into the environment three times faster than the standard C compiler according to Saber, and an incremental linker then re-links only modified modules – particularly useful with X applications, as any toolkits and the Xlib library itself do not need to be re-linked each time a change is made. The debugger has also been customised to detect errors specific to X application and SunView development. Saber-C runs on Sun Microsystems Sun-3 and Sun-4 and DEC VAX computers running Ultrix or BSD Unix, and can be used with ASCII terminals, Suntools or X Windows, with a recommended memory of 8Mb. The firm’s product literature includes an endorsement from DEC’s Charles Haynes, who is said to have used Saber-C to help in the development of the X11 toolkit, of which he was principal architect.
