4 ms·

I'm actually a version behind, I haven't got round to updating to the latest yet. What is it about XCode that you think is bad? Everyone uses their tools in d

by weavie 12y ago

I'm actually a version behind, I haven't got round to updating to the latest yet. What is it about XCode that you think is bad? Everyone uses their tools in different ways. I use Visual Studio in my day job, but I prefer to use Emacs for most of my side dev these days. Given that perhaps I don't use everything an IDE has to offer. Comparing Visual Studio with XCode, the following features are what I use to most. Autocomplete - XCode wins here. Say I have two variables - clientService and clientMapper. In XCode I can type cl<tab> and it will complete the client part of the variable for me, I then only have to choose between Service and Mapper. Visual Studio doesn't. Pressing <tab> will choose the entire current selected item. Quick open - XCode wins. Cmd + Shift + O (I think) start typing the file name, hit enter and there you are. Visual Studio (without Resharper) forces you to search through the Solution Explorer, which is slow and searches for methods as well as files. Syntax/Error/Warning Highlighting. Both IDEs do this just fine. Debugging - Cant think of anything to differentiate these IDE's. It used to be a real pain to inspect variables in XCode, but that was more GCCs fault rather than XCode. Since moving to LLVM, I haven't had any problems. Refactoring - I probably don't use these tools as much as I could. But the basics are covered. Extract method, rename variables etc.. can be handled fine by both. I don't use anything else. Vim keybindings. There is vsVim for Visual Studio and now I see there is XVim for XCode.

apetrovic 12y ago
Disclaimer: i left C++ behind 8 years ago, so if you're using Visual Studio as a C++ IDE, I trust your opinion. I used Visual Studio as C# IDE for 7 years, and... * Autocomplete - the XCode way to do autocomplete drives me crazy. Why XCode hides what I'm typing with it's guess? Regarding Visual Studio autocomplete: you start typing variable. The autocomplete narrows your choice. You press up arrow/down arrow, enter/tab, you're there. And the choice is always relevant, instead of "I'll put just everything I can think of" XCode autocomplete * Quick open - which Visual Studio version you're using? In VS 2013 you can press Ctrl+, and get essentially the same functionality as XCode. Type file name, symbol name, enter, the file is open. * Syntax/Error/Warning - Visual Studio gives you extra help if something isn't quite right. You typed "Regex" and there's red squiggly line? Place the cursor there and press Ctrl+. What's that? An option to include System.Text.RegularExpressions namespace automatically? Or you typed parameter name that doesn't exists? XCode will curse you, Visual Studio will offer (via Ctrl+.) to make the method for you, and it will infer return value and type of parameters from your code. That's great way to start writing class from scratch, and I miss it in XCode. * Debugging - again, I can't argue about C++ debugger, but C# debugger is actually much more powerful than XCode debugger. You can inspect variable values in tooltips, there's powerful visualizers, there's an option to pin tooltips with values so they're always visible (even when the program stops, so you can see the last value while fixing the error) and last and not least - very, very powerful Immediate window, sort of REPL for C#. I hope LLDB will have something similar for Swift. And there's much more that Visual Studio provides. Code Lenses (only in Ultimate version, but still). Code Peek - XCode sorta have something similar in Assistant Editor, but not quite. Find References. Call Hierarchy. And that's just the basic Visual Studio (now free) functionality. With Resharper it's completely different beast.
- weavie 12y ago
  I have been doing C#. I never knew about that Ctrl+,. Thanks for pointing it out. I don't think it is as powerful as XCodes, XCode does more fuzzy matching. I think (don't have mac open to check) in XCode if I have a file called ClientsController and I type ClientC it will bring up ClientsController. In VS it seems I have to know I want the plural ClientsController.. You are spot on with your other points though re debugging and syntax fixing. VS is better than XCode in many ways, but I would say not so much that XCode should be despised as satans spawn.

by weavie 12y ago

apetrovic 12y ago

Disclaimer: i left C++ behind 8 years ago, so if you're using Visual Studio as a C++ IDE, I trust your opinion. I used Visual Studio as C# IDE for 7 years, and... * Autocomplete - the XCode way to do autocomplete drives me crazy. Why XCode hides what I'm typing with it's guess? Regarding Visual Studio autocomplete: you start typing variable. The autocomplete narrows your choice. You press up arrow/down arrow, enter/tab, you're there. And the choice is always relevant, instead of "I'll put just everything I can think of" XCode autocomplete * Quick open - which Visual Studio version you're using? In VS 2013 you can press Ctrl+, and get essentially the same functionality as XCode. Type file name, symbol name, enter, the file is open. * Syntax/Error/Warning - Visual Studio gives you extra help if something isn't quite right. You typed "Regex" and there's red squiggly line? Place the cursor there and press Ctrl+. What's that? An option to include System.Text.RegularExpressions namespace automatically? Or you typed parameter name that doesn't exists? XCode will curse you, Visual Studio will offer (via Ctrl+.) to make the method for you, and it will infer return value and type of parameters from your code. That's great way to start writing class from scratch, and I miss it in XCode. * Debugging - again, I can't argue about C++ debugger, but C# debugger is actually much more powerful than XCode debugger. You can inspect variable values in tooltips, there's powerful visualizers, there's an option to pin tooltips with values so they're always visible (even when the program stops, so you can see the last value while fixing the error) and last and not least - very, very powerful Immediate window, sort of REPL for C#. I hope LLDB will have something similar for Swift. And there's much more that Visual Studio provides. Code Lenses (only in Ultimate version, but still). Code Peek - XCode sorta have something similar in Assistant Editor, but not quite. Find References. Call Hierarchy. And that's just the basic Visual Studio (now free) functionality. With Resharper it's completely different beast.

weavie 12y ago
I have been doing C#. I never knew about that Ctrl+,. Thanks for pointing it out. I don't think it is as powerful as XCodes, XCode does more fuzzy matching. I think (don't have mac open to check) in XCode if I have a file called ClientsController and I type ClientC it will bring up ClientsController. In VS it seems I have to know I want the plural ClientsController.. You are spot on with your other points though re debugging and syntax fixing. VS is better than XCode in many ways, but I would say not so much that XCode should be despised as satans spawn.