i think people might be conflating needing to install xcode vs launching xcode if you want to build ios apps installing xcode is a requirement (to get the prop

i think people might be conflating needing to install xcode vs launching xcode if you want to build ios apps installing xcode is a requirement (to get the proprietary cli tools) but launching xcode is not required to build native mac apps, neither installing nor running xcode is necessary, as you can build with the smaller cli-only tools which include only mac os headers/libs