Can't I get Xcode for leopord for free? or is there any other compiler which supports many languages?

Question

can't I get Xcode for leopord for free? or is there any other compiler which supports many languages?

Answer 1

XCode is Apple's official SDE (as in Software Development Environment). It is meant to be used to develop all kinds of full-fledged applications, which are organized as projects. To use it that way, you run the main XCode front end, called appropriately enough Xcode. In the older versions of the product, prior to Lion's v4.3.x, everything was found inside the /Developer folder located at the root of the boot volume. (If you ever move on to Lion, XCode 4 is now an app found in the Applications folder and there is no longer a /Developer folder.)
An alternate way to access the compilers is via command-line mode in Terminal, on traditional Unix fashion. After installing XCode, it will have set up the PATH variable to point to the appropriate directories so that gcc and its ilk are directly accessible. For instance (note that silverflash is the name of my Mac and my userid is macjuan):
silverflash:~ macjuan$ which gcc
/usr/bin/gcc
silverflash:~ macjuan$ gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
Target: i686-apple-darwin11
Configured with: /private/var/tmp/llvmgcc42/llvmgcc42-2336.1~22/src/configure --disable-checking --enable-werror --prefix=/Developer/usr/llvm-gcc-4.2 --mandir=/share/man --enable-languages=c,objc,c++,obj-c++ --program-prefix=llvm- --program-transform-name=/^[cg][^.-]*$/s/$/-4.2/ --with-slibdir=/usr/lib --build=i686-apple-darwin11 --enable-llvm=/private/var/tmp/llvmgcc42/llvmgcc42-2336.1~22/dst-llvmCore/Developer/usr/local --program-prefix=i686-apple-darwin11- --host=x86_64-apple-darwin11 --target=i686-apple-darwin11 --with-gxx-include-dir=/usr/include/c++/4.2.1
Thread model: posix
gcc version 4.2.1 (Based on Apple Inc. build 5658) (LLVM build 2336.1.00)
silverflash:~ macjuan$ gcc --version
i686-apple-darwin11-llvm-gcc-4.2 (GCC) 4.2.1 (Based on Apple Inc. build 5658) (LLVM build 2336.1.00)
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software; see the source for copying conditions.  There is NO
warranty; not even for MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.