I did each bit for a different reason, in fact :-)
In late 2002 I decided the PuTTY terminal emulator had reached a level of maturity where I actually preferred it to any of the xterm-like programs available, and it was a shame there wasn't an xterm-alike using my terminal code. So I sat down and wrote pterm.
Then I ported the SSH code to Unix, not because Unix needed any more SSH clients but because I wanted to run the fantastic valgrind debugging tool over it. Which I did, and it was very useful and found all sorts of things that I was then able to fix on Windows as well.
Then I did a Unix port of the configuration dialog box, largely as a proof of concept to make sure that my new portability interface for it actually could be used to write more than one different working implemntation. (The real aim of that work was to benefit the Mac port, but I could only test it under Unix myself because I don't speak Mac.)
After that, having done the terminal emulator, the SSH code and the config box, there really wasn't a lot left at all, and it was the work of only a few hours to tie them together into an actual PuTTY application, so I thought I might as well :-)
A command-line Unix PuTTYgen is something I've been meaning to write for ages because people keep wanting to do automatic conversion of Unix SSH keys to PuTTY format, so that was obviously worth doing.
I'd like to write my own Unix SSH agent, because there are features I'd like to put in it which I can't see OpenSSH's agent supporting in the near future. (Notably integration with X, so you can load your keys encrypted and have the agent prompt for your passphrase the first time you try to use them.)
Well, I'll definitely have to check out the unix version of the client. I'll test it out on the OS X server I have here, as it's got GTK and X installed on it.
Also, I might be able to finagle you some compile time once we get our new OS X Server up.
You also might want to check out the Apple Developer (http://developer.apple.com/) page, as they have tons of resources available for Mac OS X's API's. They also have info on the X11 port distributed with OS X Panther
Also, I went to check out the valgrind page, and there's a new link - you might want to update your bookmarks. :)
In late 2002 I decided the PuTTY terminal emulator had reached a level of maturity where I actually preferred it to any of the xterm-like programs available, and it was a shame there wasn't an xterm-alike using my terminal code. So I sat down and wrote pterm.
Then I ported the SSH code to Unix, not because Unix needed any more SSH clients but because I wanted to run the fantastic valgrind debugging tool over it. Which I did, and it was very useful and found all sorts of things that I was then able to fix on Windows as well.
Then I did a Unix port of the configuration dialog box, largely as a proof of concept to make sure that my new portability interface for it actually could be used to write more than one different working implemntation. (The real aim of that work was to benefit the Mac port, but I could only test it under Unix myself because I don't speak Mac.)
After that, having done the terminal emulator, the SSH code and the config box, there really wasn't a lot left at all, and it was the work of only a few hours to tie them together into an actual PuTTY application, so I thought I might as well :-)
A command-line Unix PuTTYgen is something I've been meaning to write for ages because people keep wanting to do automatic conversion of Unix SSH keys to PuTTY format, so that was obviously worth doing.
I'd like to write my own Unix SSH agent, because there are features I'd like to put in it which I can't see OpenSSH's agent supporting in the near future. (Notably integration with X, so you can load your keys encrypted and have the agent prompt for your passphrase the first time you try to use them.)
Also, I might be able to finagle you some compile time once we get our new OS X Server up.
You also might want to check out the Apple Developer (http://developer.apple.com/) page, as they have tons of resources available for Mac OS X's API's. They also have info on the X11 port distributed with OS X Panther
Also, I went to check out the valgrind page, and there's a new link - you might want to update your bookmarks. :)
http://valgrind.kde.org/
Someone else is already working on an OS X port. If it succeeds, I might be forced to buy a Mac to play with it :-)