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I don't think XCode is exactly popular or viewed as anything other than necessary evil by many Swift app developers. Like a sibling comment mentioned, many peop

I don't think XCode is exactly popular or viewed as anything other than necessary evil by many Swift app developers. Like a sibling comment mentioned, many people already use other IDEs to write the code and just use XCode to compile stuff because it is just so ass. Get the compiler invocation experience and maybe even the Apple Developer integration to a decent enough shape in a VS Code extension and XCode can start counting its days methinks.

jalino23 4y ago
this is what I do with visual studio for unreal engine as well. I only use it to compile and edit my code with helix
yakubin 4y ago
I’ve only started learning Swift, so I don’t know how it performs on bigger projects, but so far I’ve been loving playgrounds, if not for the dog-slow compilation, but that’s in-character for all LLVM-based compilers, so maybe not exactly XCode’s fault.
alexashka 4y ago
> many people already use other IDEs to write the code and just use XCode to compile stuff If by many, you mean less than 1%, then yes. :)
- yinser 4y ago
  Did you survey developers or care to qualify your statement?
  - sbuk 4y ago
    Equally wouldn’t it have been better had the OP backed up their claim?
marcellus23 4y ago
> many people already use other IDEs to write the code and just use XCode to compile stuff I've never met anyone who actually does this. JetBrains is even discontinuing AppCode, which as far as I know was the only real alternative IDE (and it had a lot of holes in its functionality). Xcode lacks decent refactoring tools but otherwise it's a perfectly fine IDE, and has some really powerful debugging abilities. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Apple is giving it the attention it deserves, but in my experience most people hate it just because it isn't IntelliJ or VSCode.
- dagmx 4y ago
  Well I do it. Or did till App Code was killed. I still do some Swift in CLion. Here’s my reasons: - Xcode has many failure cases for refactoring or is slow at finding symbols across extensions. Jetbrains handled it effortlessly. God forbid something crosses a target boundary. - Xcode is really terrible for multi language projects. If you’re sticking to ObjC and Swift, it’s fine, but the C++ support is really poor. If you need to throw in Python or anything else, good luck. Jetbrains handle multi language super well. - extensibility is a big deal. Xcode isn’t extensible (well only in a very limited way) and there’s many plug-ins that I either use or create for myself to speed up my work. If Xcode supported LSPs, it would honestly change the equation greatly. But today myself, and several other devs I know, edit outside Xcode and build via the command line tools instead.
  - marcellus23 4y ago
    Fair enough. My point wasn't that literally no one does it, but more that it's pretty uncommon. You can't get live errors/warnings in Swift or ObjC outside of Xcode, right?
    - dagmx 4y ago
      you can since those are a property of clang itself not Xcode. Xcode does some analysis on top of clang but you can use clangd in an LSP. What you leave behind though are any of the interactive bits like live previews, storyboards, all the core data utilities.

jalino23 4y ago

this is what I do with visual studio for unreal engine as well. I only use it to compile and edit my code with helix

yakubin 4y ago

I’ve only started learning Swift, so I don’t know how it performs on bigger projects, but so far I’ve been loving playgrounds, if not for the dog-slow compilation, but that’s in-character for all LLVM-based compilers, so maybe not exactly XCode’s fault.

alexashka 4y ago

> many people already use other IDEs to write the code and just use XCode to compile stuff If by many, you mean less than 1%, then yes. :)

yinser 4y ago
Did you survey developers or care to qualify your statement?
- sbuk 4y ago
  Equally wouldn’t it have been better had the OP backed up their claim?

marcellus23 4y ago

> many people already use other IDEs to write the code and just use XCode to compile stuff I've never met anyone who actually does this. JetBrains is even discontinuing AppCode, which as far as I know was the only real alternative IDE (and it had a lot of holes in its functionality). Xcode lacks decent refactoring tools but otherwise it's a perfectly fine IDE, and has some really powerful debugging abilities. Don't get me wrong, I don't think Apple is giving it the attention it deserves, but in my experience most people hate it just because it isn't IntelliJ or VSCode.

dagmx 4y ago
Well I do it. Or did till App Code was killed. I still do some Swift in CLion. Here’s my reasons: - Xcode has many failure cases for refactoring or is slow at finding symbols across extensions. Jetbrains handled it effortlessly. God forbid something crosses a target boundary. - Xcode is really terrible for multi language projects. If you’re sticking to ObjC and Swift, it’s fine, but the C++ support is really poor. If you need to throw in Python or anything else, good luck. Jetbrains handle multi language super well. - extensibility is a big deal. Xcode isn’t extensible (well only in a very limited way) and there’s many plug-ins that I either use or create for myself to speed up my work. If Xcode supported LSPs, it would honestly change the equation greatly. But today myself, and several other devs I know, edit outside Xcode and build via the command line tools instead.
- marcellus23 4y ago
  Fair enough. My point wasn't that literally no one does it, but more that it's pretty uncommon. You can't get live errors/warnings in Swift or ObjC outside of Xcode, right?
  - dagmx 4y ago
    you can since those are a property of clang itself not Xcode. Xcode does some analysis on top of clang but you can use clangd in an LSP. What you leave behind though are any of the interactive bits like live previews, storyboards, all the core data utilities.