Editing Acorn Archimedes (section)

====C====
Despite the use of BASIC and ARM assembly language by some software houses, notably at Computer Concepts whose developers regarded the ARM processor as having been "designed to be programmed in Assembler" and where Impression and ArtWorks were implemented in ARM assembly language using the BASIC assembler,<ref name="acornuser199409_I_wrote_that">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser146-Sep94/page/n47/mode/1up | title=I wrote that... | magazine=Acorn User | date=September 1994 | access-date=8 August 2022 | last1=Regan | first1=Jill | pages=49–50 }}</ref> the use of higher-level languages such as C became increasingly desirable for productivity and portability reasons. That Acorn had been in a position to offer its own C compiler was reportedly the consequence of "a stroke of luck": this product having been originally developed by [[Arthur Norman (computer scientist)|Arthur Norman]] and [[Alan Mycroft]] for a mainframe at Cambridge University and subsequently offered to Acorn.<ref name="acornuser199412_I_wrote_that">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser149-Dec94/page/n85/mode/2up | title=I wrote that... | magazine=Acorn User | date=December 1994 | access-date=8 August 2022 | last1=Matthewman | first1=David | pages=86–87 }}</ref>

Acorn's original C compiler and assembler products were superseded by its Desktop C and Desktop Assembler products in mid-1991.<ref name="acornuser199108_desktop">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser109-Aug91/page/n10/mode/1up | title=Program Development Now Easier in RISC OS | magazine=Acorn User | date=August 1991 | access-date=9 August 2022 | pages=9 }}</ref> These products comprised Acorn's Desktop Development Environment, aiming to reduce the time and effort involved in developing applications and modules along with supporting such activities in the desktop environment itself. Both products provided an enhanced version of Edit known as SrcEdit for source code editing that supported "throwback": navigation to locations in source code produced by other tools such as the C compiler. The Desktop Debugging Tool (DDT) was described as "a rather impressive line by line [[debugger]]" supporting breakpoints and watchpoints and allowing conventional application code (as opposed to modules) to be stepped through by "actually stopping the desktop", with control over this activity exercised through desktop-like windows operating separately from the actual desktop. Alongside compiler, assembler and [[Linker (computing)|linker]] tools, a build utility known as Make and supporting [[Makefiles]] was provided along with an improved version of the FormEd tool used for application window design. Desktop C cost £229 plus VAT, and Desktop Assembler cost £149 plus VAT.<ref name="acornuser199109_desktop">{{ cite magazine | url=https://archive.org/details/AcornUser110-Sep91/page/n108/mode/1up | title=Congenial Coding | magazine=Acorn User | date=September 1991 | access-date=9 August 2022 | last1=Euler | first1=Jim | pages=107 }}</ref>