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> I've been using XCode for 10 years. For me, it's only improved and I don't have any real pain points. This means you've learned to work around its shortcomin

> I've been using XCode for 10 years. For me, it's only improved and I don't have any real pain points. This means you've learned to work around its shortcomings. A decade ago I used to develop in PyCharm for websites, and Visual Studio .Net for desktop apps. Then I had to learn XCode for a mobile app. It was a surreal experience, like going back ten years in UX, while at the same time dealing with a myriad of modern but artificial limitations and breaking changes that meant the app needed frequent housekeeping even when its features remained unchanged. For a company that gets a huge part of its revenue on its oversized App Store tax, developers, and their tooling, should be one of their highest priorities IMO. Instead, we get Kafkaesque situations like "my app doesn't compile today... oh, I need to open my Apple Developer account in the browser and accept a new little change in their kilometric EULA that I always pretend I've read carefully". Things like this could be handled better. Edit: I also had to learn Android Studio for another app, and the experience had less friction overall, but that could mean that I've also learned to work around the shortcomings of JetBrains IDEs. Google is undeniably more developer-friendly than Apple IMO, though.

spacedcowboy 9mo ago
Honestly, that just sounds like it does things in an unfamiliar (to you) way. That's the flip side of the coin "This means you've learned to work around its shortcomings". There is no perfect IDE. They all have problems / are inadequate / get in the way. I absolutely loathe IntelliJ IDEA for example, and think Eclipse is needlessly complex (though I'd like their code-indentation/formatting UI to replace the one in Xcode). Honestly, Xcode gets a lot of bad comments, but it works pretty well for me and the debugging tools are pretty much top-notch if you take the time to learn them. I started a project on January 5th. Running sloc right now I see: ---------- Result ------------ Physical : 44454 Source : 31019 Comment : 7284 Single-line comment : 2622 Block comment : 4662 Mixed : 210 Empty block comment : 2 Empty : 6363 To Do : 0 Number of files read : 195 ---------------------------- That's a lot of code in just under a month (and none of it from AI tools), I don't think the IDE is getting in my way.
- 9dev 9mo ago
  First time I tried it, I realised there is no way to have a terminal emulator panel. A bloody terminal. Like the most basic feature you could integrate into an IDE. No thank you.
  - spacedcowboy 9mo ago
    I'm sitting here struggling to think of why the hell you need a terminal emulator in an IDE. There's a perfectly good terminal emulator called Terminal.app, it's usually the first thing I put on my dock after a fresh install of MacOS. I like the terminal, but ... in an IDE ? I always wondered why Eclipse had one as well - it just seems like a wasted pane ? Perhaps it's just the setup you (the generic "you") are used to or something. I've got 3 4k screens connected to a Mac Studio here, and plenty of space for a terminal or four to be running on-screen at the same time and in windows that don't obscure the things I want to look at. I guess if you code on an MBP and space is limited, it might be easier to switch to ? But I generally want that space for my debugger and console-app i/o. I think it'd just get in the way...
    - timtimmy 9mo ago
      Even with IDEs that have a terminal view, I still much prefer using a separate terminal app.
      - zen928 9mo ago
        Why? It seems pretty pointless to keep hot memory of the context of every app and tab you have open as to recall what process and tab and window ties to what thing you were doing at what time, when it's effectively all one related workflow inside your Integrated* Development Environment. Do you just keep a separate dedicated tab in your terminal for actions you would only do against a single directory?
        jen20 9mo ago
        I do the same - largely because I open the IDE with `idea .`/`zed .` (or whatever) from a directory with the correct nix dev shell already loaded in order to ensure the correct toolchains get used. Typically I have 3-4 different projects open at a time and probably 30-40 terminal windows across them and other places (in Ghostty). Honestly it had never really crossed my mind that people used the built-in terminal for anything!
rTX5CMRXIfFG 9mo ago
> This means you've learned to work around its shortcomings. All software of comparable size and complexity have shortcomings that everyone learns to work around. And a great many of those shortcomings are actually just highly subjective personal preferences. More than half of the complaints in this thread are, to me, a terrible idea.
- aylmao 9mo ago
  > All software of comparable size and complexity have shortcomings that everyone learns to work around. This is part of the issue IMO. Is this size and complexity warranted? Rust for example; its a complex language, can target pretty much all platforms under the sun, and yet it's configured with just text files, builds with just terminal commands, and works great with any text editor. I've seen people in big tech work on codebases millions of files big with everything from VSCode to a russian text editor from the 90s. Linus Trovalds is building Linux with MicroEMACS. Why do I need a behemoth like Xcode to build a To Do app? Why does it have to be this "big and complex"?
  - rTX5CMRXIfFG 9mo ago
    Practical answer? I don’t know, man. I’m just building a todo list after all. Heck, I build more complex apps than that but front-end work is at such a high level of abstraction that, realistically, I just never bother. I don’t mind a smaller download size, but it’s just a nice-to-have. The point about Xcode being complex, I disagree with. Honestly I could think of so many additional features to make my workflow easier.
  - RobMurray 9mo ago
    Xcode isn't necessarily the problem. Some people like it. That's fine. But apple forces it's use for iOS development. There are workarounds like Tuist, but you are still locked into Xcode for debugging, instruments, and even console output from an iOS device! Nobody is saying not to use Xcode if you like it, but there should be a choice like there is for almost every other modern platform.
  - trinix912 9mo ago
marxisttemp 9mo ago
> Google is undeniably more developer-friendly than Apple IMO, though Yeah, I love editing XML files to build my app
- ASalazarMX 9mo ago
  I meant the companies. For example, Apple Developer costs 99 USD a year, and you are forced to develop on a physical Mac. Google Developer has a free tier, and lets you develop on Windows/Linux/MacOS/VM. This is just one of the little ways where Google products prioritize developers, while Apple products prioritize market share and consumers. Both companies have abusive practices, can't argue that, but Apple has more needless friction for developers.

spacedcowboy 9mo ago

Honestly, that just sounds like it does things in an unfamiliar (to you) way. That's the flip side of the coin "This means you've learned to work around its shortcomings". There is no perfect IDE. They all have problems / are inadequate / get in the way. I absolutely loathe IntelliJ IDEA for example, and think Eclipse is needlessly complex (though I'd like their code-indentation/formatting UI to replace the one in Xcode). Honestly, Xcode gets a lot of bad comments, but it works pretty well for me and the debugging tools are pretty much top-notch if you take the time to learn them. I started a project on January 5th. Running sloc right now I see: ---------- Result ------------ Physical : 44454 Source : 31019 Comment : 7284 Single-line comment : 2622 Block comment : 4662 Mixed : 210 Empty block comment : 2 Empty : 6363 To Do : 0 Number of files read : 195 ---------------------------- That's a lot of code in just under a month (and none of it from AI tools), I don't think the IDE is getting in my way.

9dev 9mo ago
First time I tried it, I realised there is no way to have a terminal emulator panel. A bloody terminal. Like the most basic feature you could integrate into an IDE. No thank you.
- spacedcowboy 9mo ago
  I'm sitting here struggling to think of why the hell you need a terminal emulator in an IDE. There's a perfectly good terminal emulator called Terminal.app, it's usually the first thing I put on my dock after a fresh install of MacOS. I like the terminal, but ... in an IDE ? I always wondered why Eclipse had one as well - it just seems like a wasted pane ? Perhaps it's just the setup you (the generic "you") are used to or something. I've got 3 4k screens connected to a Mac Studio here, and plenty of space for a terminal or four to be running on-screen at the same time and in windows that don't obscure the things I want to look at. I guess if you code on an MBP and space is limited, it might be easier to switch to ? But I generally want that space for my debugger and console-app i/o. I think it'd just get in the way...
  - timtimmy 9mo ago
    Even with IDEs that have a terminal view, I still much prefer using a separate terminal app.
    - zen928 9mo ago
      Why? It seems pretty pointless to keep hot memory of the context of every app and tab you have open as to recall what process and tab and window ties to what thing you were doing at what time, when it's effectively all one related workflow inside your Integrated* Development Environment. Do you just keep a separate dedicated tab in your terminal for actions you would only do against a single directory?
      - jen20 9mo ago
        I do the same - largely because I open the IDE with `idea .`/`zed .` (or whatever) from a directory with the correct nix dev shell already loaded in order to ensure the correct toolchains get used. Typically I have 3-4 different projects open at a time and probably 30-40 terminal windows across them and other places (in Ghostty). Honestly it had never really crossed my mind that people used the built-in terminal for anything!

rTX5CMRXIfFG 9mo ago

> This means you've learned to work around its shortcomings. All software of comparable size and complexity have shortcomings that everyone learns to work around. And a great many of those shortcomings are actually just highly subjective personal preferences. More than half of the complaints in this thread are, to me, a terrible idea.

aylmao 9mo ago
> All software of comparable size and complexity have shortcomings that everyone learns to work around. This is part of the issue IMO. Is this size and complexity warranted? Rust for example; its a complex language, can target pretty much all platforms under the sun, and yet it's configured with just text files, builds with just terminal commands, and works great with any text editor. I've seen people in big tech work on codebases millions of files big with everything from VSCode to a russian text editor from the 90s. Linus Trovalds is building Linux with MicroEMACS. Why do I need a behemoth like Xcode to build a To Do app? Why does it have to be this "big and complex"?
- rTX5CMRXIfFG 9mo ago
  Practical answer? I don’t know, man. I’m just building a todo list after all. Heck, I build more complex apps than that but front-end work is at such a high level of abstraction that, realistically, I just never bother. I don’t mind a smaller download size, but it’s just a nice-to-have. The point about Xcode being complex, I disagree with. Honestly I could think of so many additional features to make my workflow easier.
- RobMurray 9mo ago
  Xcode isn't necessarily the problem. Some people like it. That's fine. But apple forces it's use for iOS development. There are workarounds like Tuist, but you are still locked into Xcode for debugging, instruments, and even console output from an iOS device! Nobody is saying not to use Xcode if you like it, but there should be a choice like there is for almost every other modern platform.
- trinix912 9mo ago

marxisttemp 9mo ago

> Google is undeniably more developer-friendly than Apple IMO, though Yeah, I love editing XML files to build my app

ASalazarMX 9mo ago
I meant the companies. For example, Apple Developer costs 99 USD a year, and you are forced to develop on a physical Mac. Google Developer has a free tier, and lets you develop on Windows/Linux/MacOS/VM. This is just one of the little ways where Google products prioritize developers, while Apple products prioritize market share and consumers. Both companies have abusive practices, can't argue that, but Apple has more needless friction for developers.