6 ms·

Could have spent the time filing a feedback request/radar instead of writing a blog post.

joshstrange 2y ago
That’s a good joke. Radars appear to be largely ignored.
viraptor 2y ago
Radar is where the reports die. I'd be amazed if Apple engineers didn't know about the thousands of things broken in Xcode. I can crash it in minutes just adding/removing controls and constraints. It shows there's minimal testing and even crash reports are ignored. I have a 2 years old trivially reproducible "whole system crashes" feedback submission which doesn't get fixed.
- ninkendo 2y ago
  Apple has a culture of ignoring bugs and just working on features. The software program org decides what is going to happen for the next release, and engineers are assigned, and no resources are left to fix any existing bugs. The idea is for there to be “zero bugs” by the time a release is done, but this really means “any remaining bugs are punted to the N+1 release”. But when the N+1 release comes around, the cycle repeats and the program org picks the next thing to do, and everyone forgets about all the bugs that were punted. Repeat forever. Engineers would kill for a “zero new features, let’s just fix bugs” release, but such a release would basically mean the program org has nothing to do, and the program org is in charge, so it never happens. They’ll mutter things like “we can’t go on stage and just not announce any features”, which isn’t wrong per se, but the first step to fixing a problem is to admit you have one, and that will never happen. The whole thing is set up to produce worse software over time. It’s really really sad.
  - ghist 2y ago
    > “we can’t go on stage and just not announce any features”, which isn’t wrong per se But they literally already did exactly that! http://ismh.s3.amazonaws.com/snow-leopard-0-new-features.jpg http://ismh.s3.amazonaws.com/snow-leopard-0-new-features.jpg
    - ninkendo 2y ago
      Trust me! I know. I know so hard. But that’s still the kind of thing they say. Everyone just up and forgot about snow leopard, or maybe they just see it as a failure if they had to do a snow leopard release (at least the program org would. The engineers would be throwing a party.)
  - lapcat 2y ago
    > They’ll mutter things like “we can’t go on stage and just not announce any features”, which isn’t wrong per se It is actually wrong. Mac OS X wasn't on an annual schedule until after Steve Jobs died. For a time, the schedule was more or less every two years, so there were some WWDCs when Jobs had little or nothing new to announce about it.
- internetter 2y ago
  Yeah, I don’t file bug reports anymore. I just write in the ticket “this is probably an Apple bug with XCode. Workaround:” and then go on with my life
- hbn 2y ago
  It's confusing because I have to assume there's a sizeable amount of people using Xcode internally to develop Apple's own apps. I guess their voices aren't heard from the people dictating corporate priority.
  - walterbell 2y ago
    Apple awaits a new CEO.
realusername 2y ago
XCode is beyond broken, it doesn't need any feedback, anybody who uses it for more than 10 minutes can see it's awful. We know it, Apple knows it, everybody knows it. This software isn't in an "it would be cool to improve this" stage but something like "can it still be saved?" stage.

That’s a good joke. Radars appear to be largely ignored.

Radar is where the reports die. I'd be amazed if Apple engineers didn't know about the thousands of things broken in Xcode. I can crash it in minutes just adding/removing controls and constraints. It shows there's minimal testing and even crash reports are ignored. I have a 2 years old trivially reproducible "whole system crashes" feedback submission which doesn't get fixed.

ninkendo 2y ago
Apple has a culture of ignoring bugs and just working on features. The software program org decides what is going to happen for the next release, and engineers are assigned, and no resources are left to fix any existing bugs. The idea is for there to be “zero bugs” by the time a release is done, but this really means “any remaining bugs are punted to the N+1 release”. But when the N+1 release comes around, the cycle repeats and the program org picks the next thing to do, and everyone forgets about all the bugs that were punted. Repeat forever. Engineers would kill for a “zero new features, let’s just fix bugs” release, but such a release would basically mean the program org has nothing to do, and the program org is in charge, so it never happens. They’ll mutter things like “we can’t go on stage and just not announce any features”, which isn’t wrong per se, but the first step to fixing a problem is to admit you have one, and that will never happen. The whole thing is set up to produce worse software over time. It’s really really sad.
- ghist 2y ago
  > “we can’t go on stage and just not announce any features”, which isn’t wrong per se But they literally already did exactly that! http://ismh.s3.amazonaws.com/snow-leopard-0-new-features.jpg http://ismh.s3.amazonaws.com/snow-leopard-0-new-features.jpg
  - ninkendo 2y ago
    Trust me! I know. I know so hard. But that’s still the kind of thing they say. Everyone just up and forgot about snow leopard, or maybe they just see it as a failure if they had to do a snow leopard release (at least the program org would. The engineers would be throwing a party.)
- lapcat 2y ago
  > They’ll mutter things like “we can’t go on stage and just not announce any features”, which isn’t wrong per se It is actually wrong. Mac OS X wasn't on an annual schedule until after Steve Jobs died. For a time, the schedule was more or less every two years, so there were some WWDCs when Jobs had little or nothing new to announce about it.
internetter 2y ago
Yeah, I don’t file bug reports anymore. I just write in the ticket “this is probably an Apple bug with XCode. Workaround:” and then go on with my life
hbn 2y ago
It's confusing because I have to assume there's a sizeable amount of people using Xcode internally to develop Apple's own apps. I guess their voices aren't heard from the people dictating corporate priority.
- walterbell 2y ago
  Apple awaits a new CEO.

realusername 2y ago

XCode is beyond broken, it doesn't need any feedback, anybody who uses it for more than 10 minutes can see it's awful. We know it, Apple knows it, everybody knows it. This software isn't in an "it would be cool to improve this" stage but something like "can it still be saved?" stage.