Xcode Sucks And Here's Why

Posted 11 years ago

1) It crashes. A lot. I remember back in the early days of Eclipse, it would crash pretty frequently. It's funny because I had forgotten all about that until I started using Xcode. Then I remembered what it's like to be using a shitty IDE which crashes all the time. Ironically enough, Eclipse NEVER crashes on my Mac, but Xcode, which is an Apple product, is crashing on its own hardware.

2) It manages the project files and their hierarchy using a shitty flat file (pbxproj). This means if you want to use Finder to organize your project, which is sure to have tons of graphical assets, forget about it. If you try to copy a file from Finder into your Xcode project and that file exists on the file system but not in the Xcode flat file, it throws an error. You have to go into Finder, find the orphaned file, delete it, then go back to your copying operation. And the actual files on your file system are in one big gigantic mess.



This is how Xcode manages your file hierarchy and project workspace

3) I have never seen something have such tremendous lag and failure rate when connecting to the emulator. Approximately 50% of the time Xcode will just hang, and never connect to the emulator when I run the project. Ditto goes for running the project on a device. There have been numerous times i just have to kill Xcode.

4) Speaking of killing Xcode, sometimes I have to reboot my entire machine. Xcode can leave zombie processes of your app running, and these zombies can prevent you from doing any more deployments to the emulator. ps -el | grep 'Z' can show you if you are afflicted. A similar bug can happen on the hardware where you have to reboot the hardware, restart Xcode, or both.

5) IOS4 vs IOS5. Come on Apple, I am begging you to not turn IOS into the next Internet Explorer. That would be so sad. Granted, the backwards compatibility is 'ok', but it's not amazing. For starters, storyboards don't really work on IOS4. You can get it to build with storyboards, but you cannot instantiate a UIViewController from the storyboard. You have to do it from the nib. Some key methods are deprecated, so if you want to stretch an image over a button you'll need to check if your UIImage has the right selector.

resizableImageWithCapInsets vs stretchableImageWithLeftCapInsets
You'll need some code like this for stretching images in IOS4 and 5

6) Connecting UI elements to their IBOutlet is the most annoying thing I have ever done in an IDE. First you add a text field, then you add the IBOutlet to the interface, synthesize the object, then click and drag a line from the UI element to the parent class and select the correct outlet from a menu. Are they f*&king smoking a pound of crack over there? I thought Apple was the paragon of design perfection and usability. Who the hell designed that? At the very best, adding a UI element should somehow automatically build out the declaration in the interface, synthesize it and do whatever the hell that blue line connector does. But at the very worst, I should be able to click something that just does all that for me, and I simply provide an argument name.

Well, there's plenty more to say, but after about 5 seconds of googling, I see I am not the only one. Maybe all of this is solvable, perhaps some of you know a way around all of this nonsense. If so, please do let me know. Otherwise, I hope the Xcode team gets it together and really makes this software usable and stable. Their market is getting massive, and if they want to prevent a few less gray hairs in this world, they could do us all a huge favor and make the IDE a bit more sane.

I am using XCode 4.3.1

About the author

Dev/Code/Hack is a technology and business blog by me, Par Trivedi. I'm a software engineer and I've been writing code and managing teams for over a decade. This blog serves as a way to share thoughts and ideas about the tech/startup community, and also to educate newcomers to software development.

369 Comments

  • I nearly lost my sanity when I realized I had lost my money to crypto-organized fraudsters. I didn't know I would ever be a target of con artists because I have lived my life outright, and the idea of knowing that I had lost what I had labored for to some pretentious individuals will haunt me forever. But then I found a team of Ethical Hackers and everything changed. Joel explained how the process of recovering my money would work, and what we needed to do to get my hard-earned money back, they did an impressive job doing private investigations on those con artists that even my cop friend I had reported the case to marveled at their expertise. And then they did well-recouping funds I had sent to those pranksters severally on different platforms and wallets. The process took a while but the efforts invested in it were worthwhile. The day I confirmed the coins in my wallet felt like I just earned a million bucks. (Cybergenie (@) cyberservices (.) com) (WhatsApp (+) 12525120391). Zachary Martina H..

    Zachary Martina 5 months ago   Reply

  • Thanks for this rant. I'm in an Xhole now. It helps. Thanks.

    Guy from Rotterdam 9 months ago   Reply

  • Hello

    63693775 11 months ago   Reply

  • I think so

    Wikwuk 1 year ago   Reply

  • It's 2022 now and Xcode is still suffocating every time I have to use it.

    Who 1 year ago   Reply

  • XCode and Apple are "funny". I hadn't another choice: I installed XCode 13.3 to run the code on iPhone device, and XCode 13.1 to archive the build. Archive feature doesn't work with XCode 13.3, and XCode 13.1 doesn't run the project on devices... LOL. It's just an absolutely disaster.

    1 year ago   Reply

  • Xcode13 here now, still sucks as it used to be, as it has been. Fucking can't even compile on large projects, just hangs on Planning Build xx/xxx. Fuck! Restart,build,hang,Fuck! Infinite loop! And it's fucking slow,laggy, View Debug buggy and sucks. WTF has xcode team been doing, do u ppl don't use xcode to write ur apps??? Other teams inside apple never complain????? These idiots should be put an apple inside their asshole, forbidden to take out until xcode is fucking fixed. or better replaced with a reasonable fast and good-to-use IDE! All in all FUCK U xcode team!

    FckXcode 1 year ago   Reply

  • xCode 12 is utter laggy crap. Apple can fuck themselves up.

    TT 2 years ago   Reply

  • why 'x'code is sucks? 1) they must swift off showing all useless warnings on the left panel. 2) don't change the window panel focus automatically while I'm working, you fuckers of focus. 3) macOS's finder can switch tabs by pressing control+tab/shift control+tab, but 'x'code cannot. are they products of one company? what the fuck are you doing apple? how are you able to do a great job without keeping consistency of your own products line? 4) please kick xcode team members's asses whenever one bug is discovered. 5) file drag & drop to xcode window must open the file, you idiot! 6) all ui of xcode like font size, icon size and etc must be able to scale, you fucking idiot! why? because apple, you're selling products of very high resolution, don't you? consistency! consistency! phew, tons of fucking idiots even in apple. 7) what the fuck with the compile speed, debug information retrieving speed, ... make faster more faster! move faster! fucking stoneheads.

    'x'code 2 years ago   Reply

  • xcode development team is totally a bundle of losers. they might be the most naive team in apple. they have no ux/ui concept, no project management concept, no architecture, and no philosophy. the xcode is completely below the basic level. ms visual studio 25 years ago is much better and performative than 'x'code in 2021. now? who is using 'x'code for the editor? absolutely they must have a sense of inferiority against ms vscode team. i don't get why apple is wasting tons of money for the team. it would be better to buy some foods with the money for geese around apple's headquarter and feeding.

    noxcode 2 years ago   Reply

  • does anybody know how to make images load? I used the UIImageView thing but it just doesn't load. It says there are problems and I've tried multiple things. I don't know if it's because I'm new or... yeah. If you know how to help please tell me- it's really annoying and it keeps overheating my mac when it's a small project D:

    \\Kk_cats// 2 years ago   Reply

  • It is sooo fuckking awful. Just absolutely terrible. It's so bad. It's just so bad. Why. Why do iOS developers put up with this bullshit. For fuck's sake. What in the fuck. Just fuck. Fuckin fuck. Unreal.

    2 years ago   Reply

  • This was posted so long ago, and Apple.. Apple never changes. Today I was busy doing my hustle side project. I had over 30 crashes while coding SwiftUI app. I'm really tired of this shit. This is my last Xcode project. I promise. I had enough of this shit. In my daily job I am Visual Studio user. I can left my PC turned on for a week, return and VS is still working stable. I forgot when I had any problems with VS. Apple software is worst shit on planet Earth.

    justme 2 years ago   Reply

  • Have just had to go back and grapple with Xcode after a decent break swearing at Android Studio. Yup, Xcode is still the most rubbish IDE I have had to use. The others include Netbeans, Idea, Eclipse, VSCode, VS and others (Yup I have an eclectic working life). Xcode is still the shittiest... by far.

    Ozymandias 2 years ago   Reply

  • Has anyone mentioned yet that the Xcode download is some freaking 12 GIGABYTES (!!!)? That's an IDE, MIND YOU? NOT A 4K MOVIE! WTF?

    Alexander Ewering 2 years ago   Reply

  • I've found my tribe. I can remember using Eclipse to start developing Android apps back in 2008. That was a nightmare that only got slightly better with the introduction of Android Studio in 2013. When JetBrains dropped AppCode some years after that I tried it out. Xcode remains the reason why I can't take developing iOS apps seriously. It's too restrictive and often just lacks quality of life things that would make it a worthwhile investment to learn.

    Victor 2 years ago   Reply

  • And don't get me started on the fact that I have to download 1 million gigabytes of data just to upgrade to a new fuckin version. Jesus fuckin Christ Apple!!!

    Jay 2 years ago   Reply

  • Once again I am searching for this kind of post, just to find someone that can sympathies with my frustration. Whoever defend for xcode and think it is decent, honestly really good for you man. Sometimes I thought maybe I am just dumb and lazy? But as a fresh graduated programmer, compare first time between using Android Studio vs Xcode, unity or any other platform, Xcode is just the worst nightmare I could imagine I will ever deal with.

    Aub 2 years ago   Reply

  • 2020 Xcode sucks more than ever before. It still can't even sort its project structure alphabetically. And if you do manually (arrgh) then it will lead to lots of merge conflicts in a large project. so we're stuck forever with a chaotic project structure!

    DrStrange 2 years ago   Reply

  • I don't understand why the hell XCode is so low quality, i'm and Android developer and i thought that Android studio have annoying things but after working with XCode for month i came to conclusion, Android studio is pretty good one, XCode for some reason just can stop autocomplete suggestions or start yeling about unresolved objects for no reason and only restatrt XCode or reinstall pods will help, please apple team help us

    Maksim 3 years ago   Reply

  • This post is 8 years old. Xcode is 12 years old. Xcode still stinks.

    12 years 3 years ago   Reply

  • Still sucks and from a test perspective functionality half way works, then is broken next minor update, then is kind of fixed with a workaround and then broken again in following update. I hate this IDE and I have a new found hate for Apple products.

    SchlumpSDETIOS 3 years ago   Reply

  • 8 years later... it still sucks

    newbie 3 years ago   Reply

  • JetBrains' AppCode is leagues ahead of xcode already and the only shit thing about it are xcode tools underneath. Apple is like a dictatorship, JetBrains is like a democracy. Fuck you Apple....

    JetBrains FTW 3 years ago   Reply

  • Still fucking sucks. It's impossible to code collaboratively with the .pbxproj file. Constantly dealing with merge conflicts, references/configs getting orphaned and nuked accidentally, crashes while switching between Git branches. We're on Xcode 11.2, but this fucking IDE has always sucked and will always suck until they rebuild the configuration engine.

    Fuckthisshit 3 years ago   Reply

  • Xcode is a total piece a shit. It takes more than 20 minutes to "lunch..." and it take for ever even in playground to run one line of code! I mean one line!!

    goozpump 4 years ago   Reply

  • I have no issues with AppCode :) Little bumpy on version changes, but Jetbrains are quick to fix it.

    Richard 4 years ago   Reply

  • Haha! Yes!! Every other time I run, it crashes on the way to the phone. And stackviews are making me about want to quit iOS with the sheer bugginess it seems to bring along.

    Brad 5 years ago   Reply

  • Worst XCode9 why apple becomes this much of lazy appearnce to degrade there own product i dont know i am fan of apple products based on that interst i am using xcode but after ios11 and xcode 9 it becomes worst prodcuts of Decade. Mind it APPLE worst service.

    Ios dev 5 years ago   Reply

  • I love Apple, but I have to recognize that I update to xcode 9 is a nightmare. Crash all the time, I can even add an image, all time the beachball in my screen. Honestly with xcode 8 doesn´t happend nothing like that. Best regards

    somebody 5 years ago   Reply

  • Hi. Im a fulltime iOS/Android developer working al day with mobile. Im having none of these issues with Xcode, granted xcode 9 is stupid slow when working with storyboard, but it almost never crash, the Sim never hangs or locks. I have worked with Eclipse for a long time and must say that its deffently the worse IDE i have ever used. Android Studio was bad in the beginning but its almost as good as Xcode now. Nothing beats Visual Studio thats the perfect ide :D

    Dev 5 years ago   Reply

  • Xcode 9 is the biggest piece of shit of i have ever seen. Crashes at least 5 times a day... Sometimes requiring a complete computer reboot!!

    5 years ago   Reply

  • I'm happy to have found a page of people who understand my frustrations... I got here by Googling "Interface Builder is hot garbage". You and everyone in the comments have made me feel much less alone in my struggles, thank you.

    frustrated-fellow 5 years ago   Reply

  • xCode 9 Wahahahha shittiest IDE i have ever had

    5 years ago   Reply

  • Visual Studio and VS Code rules in development IDEs. Apple needs to take note. XCode really sucks. Apple is really luck they own the mobile market. If not, I would't develop shit on their platform.

    VS/VSCode 6 years ago   Reply

    • abusofuckinglutely

      ac 4 years ago   Reply

  • You remembered me why i left the iOS/Apple ecosystem alltogether (and other 1000 reasons more), i admit, it was fun ... sometimes ...

    someone-else 6 years ago   Reply

  • Just the way they manage views and tabs is a mess. No other IDE does it that way, there has to be a reason... but no they had to do it the "Apple way". Fucking morons

    Jo 6 years ago   Reply

  • Googling "xcode sucks". No wonder why I am here.

    6 years ago   Reply

    • yep, nothing changed. Apple can't fix Xcode. They are too busy making money.

      justme 2 years ago   Reply

    • 2 years later, and same.

      same 3 years ago   Reply

  • Yeah Fucking shiiity

    Fucking Shit 6 years ago   Reply

  • Sorry, but I just have to vent. Xcode 8.2 is absolute crap. Anyone who claims otherwise must either be crazy or has never used another IDE for more than an hour. Auto Layout and constraints are a joke. With Xcode designing a UI is not science its Black Magic. Need to add another view to an already finished View Controller - forget it. Linking IBOutlet and IBAction to the VC is such a joke. Don't forget the click/hold down control/drag in opposite directions -- that makes sense! Obj-C is just [[NSData alloc] BundleOfBullShit: ThatJustKeepGettingThingsAdd [ButNotFixed]]. Swift gets changed every four months so that Swift 1.0/2.0/2.2/2.3 looks completely different from Swift 3.0/3.1. Java and C# have changed in the past too, but at least my code still compiles - every time! I've coded in C++, C#, Java, PHP, Pascal, Fortran even the completely superfluous VB and VB.Net. All have cleaner syntax and are more accessible than either Obj-C or Swift. Apple must truly hate developer!

    Calling From the Rubber Room 6 years ago   Reply

  • Apple sucks donkey balls! Why can't I command click to a function definition! Are they bloody retarded? SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW! SO ANGRY. Ohh and yes totally agree with you!

    Dan 6 years ago   Reply

  • I CANNOT AGREE MORE! And after every XCode update, I need considerable amount of time to get my code to start working again! FML

    HolyKou 6 years ago   Reply

  • Your Crapintosh needs help ASAP

    Kenny 6 years ago   Reply

  • I ?? Xcode

    lololololol 6 years ago   Reply

  • Xcode 8 is by far the easiest and most functional IDE that i have yet had the pleasure to use, i don't know wheeeeeere the hell you get your delusions from XD

    6 years ago   Reply

    • perhaps you have not used it long enough.

      gerald 6 years ago   Reply

  • More people should read all these comments to realize just how bad Xcode can be. Visual Studio has its faults, but it is infinitely better than Xcode.

    Jim 6 years ago   Reply

    • lol, you ppl can't appreciate anything anymore

      6 years ago   Reply

      • Some people have taste you know...

        Jo 6 years ago   Reply

  • You are fucking right

    Fuck666 6 years ago   Reply

  • Maybe you've never worked with any other IDE, I've worked with many versions Visual Studio, it's terrible, Eclipse IDE is not too bad but it's not great, NetBeans is horrible, Android Studio and the simulator is slow as hell. XCode is pretty decent, I never had lags on XCode and I use it everyday, if connecting IBOutlets is complicated for you I don't know what to think... maybe you have to learn to use it first and then make a better review...

    Pablo Sedano 6 years ago   Reply

    • How many times did it happen to you, to CMD+Click on a method name and be landed in a totally different class?

      6 years ago   Reply

    • Every single one of those IDEs you've listed are better than xcode. Get your head out of your ass.

      lol 6 years ago   Reply

  • I see only crying babies here. Which is funny as hell!! xDDD

    Paul 7 years ago   Reply

    • wait until you have worked on Localization!!

      6 years ago   Reply

    • What about today? Where Xcode 8 is fucking up every single interface you have developed to date?

      Niggets 6 years ago   Reply

  • Source version support of Xcode is terrible. When open s XIB file updates some unnecessary numbers and it creates altered file even though nothing is changed in the file. Also it crashes and freezes.

    Fatih 7 years ago   Reply

  • Creating apps using autoLayout and swift requires less code and makes iOS development easier compared to Android, but Xcode strip it all away, Xcode is like a toy car, and Android Studio feels like formula 1.

    Omar 7 years ago   Reply

  • Thank god I'm not alone, wasn't sure if I was just 'doing it wrong'. Xcode 50 will get code folding and people will applaud in WWDC 2030. Let's just hope web app IDE's get upto VS level before that!

    Chris 7 years ago   Reply

    • Absolutely! Apple is surviving just because of its fanboys...

      6 years ago   Reply

  • I drank the kool aid! And now I suffer. Xcode was working OK for the whole dev cycle. Then.. just as I change one simple background image into a half screen image... xcode suddenly can't figure out how to display the damn UI. So... forget about WYSIWIG. It's all messed up. I want to go back to code only, but that would be too hard now -- even with git. Why did I switch? Those damn WWDC videos making Auto layout & storyboards just seem to work great. Also lots of idiots out there saying that the shit works now. THE SHIT DOES NOT WORK. DO NOT USE STORYBOARDS. LAY IT OUT IN CODE! USE PURELAYOUT INSTEAD OF APPLE's CODE.

    matt 7 years ago   Reply

  • It's so complicated and the instructions are a giant wall of even more complicated. I just can't seem to actually ever figure out or know what I should do next to do basically anything. I already know a lot of C/C++ and tons of other languages that you just create with an editor in a directory and use make or automake to build the crap. Find the header files, the libs and just build the -I and -l dirs into the $(CC) line, or the $INCLUDE env var and type "make". I know I'm a dinosaur, but even adding a stupid library is nearly impossible to just do without a giant time investment. I don't know how you all learned this. /bow

    Sam 7 years ago   Reply

  • Xcode has gotten a lot worse over the years (v 7.3). If you use swift you get random errors, like crashes when using generics. Xcode crashes from time to time, as iOS-developer, you just have to get used to it. Autolayout, well, don't even get me started. Clicking a xib file to open it will automatically change the xml code (adding random stuff like missplaced=true or just changing ids). Our code is full of workarounds. Without doubt, one of the worst SDK/IDEs I have ever had the "pleasure" working on. Sometimes, at nights, when I remember I am an iOS developer, I have to cry myself to sleep :´(

    iOS-Dev 7 years ago   Reply

    • Fuck me bro. For every hour I spend developing I spend other 2 hours fighting against xcode´s bugs... So annoying.

      AnibalMadrid 7 years ago   Reply

    • you're not alone.... lol :D

      fuckapple 7 years ago   Reply

  • Xcode has gotten a lot better over the years (v 7.2) and you need a powerful mac to run Xcode. Its not a software, but a bunch on software , simulator, complier, debugging tools in one package, Its needs a powerful machine to run on

    Dipesh Somvanshi 7 years ago   Reply

    • lolololol I do my development on a mac mini and it works so great

      mac mini 6 years ago   Reply

    • i don't think it really needs a powerful system to run. i have currently 7 programs open, 3 Xcode windows, the simulator running and at least 10 tabs in safari open on a core2duo 2009 MBP and its still running fine. mind you I'm not a professional dev just a uni student doing an assignment

      jake 7 years ago   Reply

    • Sorry, I have to disagree.. It is not xcode that has gotten better it is swift that made it semi bearable, comparatively to obj-c. That is about it.. other than that pretty much all development revolving around ios is horrible, buggy, and overly complicated just to do a few simple things like alignments, (I could go on but I have already ranted on here :]) etc, etc, etc.. If people would just stop buying overpriced obsolete devices just because of a logo, then I think the world would get along just fine and we wouldn't have to develop in a horrible ide just to appease a small percentage of users still clinging to the 'innovation' hype.. Just sayin

      fuckapple 7 years ago   Reply

  • Wish they didn't force it upon developers and instead offered a compiler for more platforms than OS X

    Jesse 7 years ago   Reply

  • AutoLayout with two simple buttons aligned botton makes me crazy.

    Alex 7 years ago   Reply

  • Each time i compile a new package of the same application, each time i have to regenerate provisionning profiles, certificates and some shit like that. Seriously, i spend most of my time repairing that dumb shit than building apps. Go to hell apple.

    Arn 7 years ago   Reply

  • Don't forget about UIView alignments. It's a metric ton of dumb crap you have to walk through just to get 5 views to align. WTF, Apple? Android and Windows programming is for the big boys. Even with Swift iOS is lacking major functionality the others give. It's just dumb that this stuff is overlooked. For example, why no Visibility state of collapsed, instead a Bool property for hidden? That's dumb. Now I have to dynamically alter constraints or change the frame of a view to get a vertical collapse effect? In Swift 2, no generic interfaces? That really crashes any type of SOLID principle developments. No pure virtual either? WTF? I have to create abstract methods that are only abstract because of a preconditionFailure or assertionFailure? iOS is so lacking when it comes to OOP features, the code will have low cohesion and high coupling. You can't get around it. And what about their half-assed attempt at MVC? IBOutlets from the storyboard to the controller or view, that's just an additional step I don't need. Why do I even have to go the attributes menu that always crashes Xcode to link a controller to a storyboard controller? Why in the good name of all of programming do I have to do that step backwards to link from a custom UIView to the storyboard!?! At best it's a juvenile when compared to the adults in the neighborhood.

    Josh 7 years ago   Reply

    • Fully agree.. don't forget the uiview alignments never translate over to the other resolution sizes properly (especially images) and you have to spend hours, if not days just trying to get everything to align on multiple resolutions. HUGE waste of time developing for this obsolete platform. I hope they actually listen to what the community (or soon to be lack there of) of ios developers out there instead of going their own damn route all the time and 'trying' to make things easier for development. Big pile of shit that I HAVE to develop for, all because users out there don't know how obsolete their phones and devices actually are compared to other devices in the market. Glad this site is here for me to rant about it, lol.. only saving grace :]

      fuckapple 7 years ago   Reply

      • because... it isn't... you were wrong... it blew up... hahahaha

        iOS dev is doomed 6 years ago   Reply

  • This kind of software have a name bloatware! Xcode (I'm with 7th inflation) is so fill with useless features that you have work hard to find useful ones in that junk pile! It's a big ever changing mess. And you have to waste hours to relearn how doing your work at each new inflation of the bloatware. Codewarior I miss you!

    Grrrrr! 7 years ago   Reply

  • It is a stinking pile of ***. Together with Apple's obsession for certificates and profiles the whole development experience sucks.

    James 7 years ago   Reply

  • Please don't expand new issues automatically. Please don't expand it! I have to scroll it all day long to see an some error. Oh..it's terrible.

    Xcoder 7 years ago   Reply

  • XCode have lots of bugs. One of the example is ERRORS.. Missing ; when you are not missing anything. Logic Error. It compiles tho, but annoying..

    7 years ago   Reply

  • I am a loaf of cheese. Being cheese my biggest difficulty is typing with the right pressure so as not crumble or squish on the keyboard. Xcode seems to serve me pretty well though.

    Ronald 7 years ago   Reply

    • It's OK ...we understand your affinity - XCode is cobbled together like curds of cheese ...big fat curd here ...a couple of smaller curds there ...and a little icon curd way off in the corner (who knows what it does because it has no tool tips). XCode's IDE (not that it "integrated" so much as "agglomerated") is exactly like other Apple software UIs. They're all just a mishmash of last minute Band-Aids and add-ons for marketing purposes that have no coherent design with usability in mind (not to mention bug-free robustness). Fortunately I've been building for iOS in Xamarin lately and that has freed me up from dealing with most of the arcane clunkiness of XCode ...at least part of the time.

      XamarinRulesOverXCode 7 years ago   Reply

  • Dude was right on about Xcode 4.3. You have to admit there's been a lot of progress on Xcode.

    7 years ago   Reply

    • Nope. None.

      frustratedXcodeUser 7 years ago   Reply

      • fully agree.. I fucking hate xcode and not to mention the lack of REAL documentation and examples.. not to mention fixing year old issues with constraints, etc, etc, etc..

        fuckapple 7 years ago   Reply

        • I’ve been using Xcode since it first came out. Whining about your inability to use a tool doesn’t mean the tool is bad. I see a lot of tennis players complain about their racket being bad as well. Yuh huh.... Ever bother to READ the documentation? No, of course not. You would just rather whine.

          feloneouscat 7 years ago   Reply

          • Yep, right on. Rock stars don't blame their guitars.. but crappy musicians do

            This 6 years ago   Reply

          • One more thing.. the app submission process is convoluted, archaic, and takes fooooorever to archive, then validate, then upload.. then I have to wait another damn 30 minutes for it to even be available for the update to be listed to where I can even submit it for review in itunes. THEN, I have to wait 4-8 fucking days just for it to be approved. Can't believe you are actually defending this shit they call an ide. Although, Obviously you didn't READ the fact that I was complaining about their 'lack of REAL documentation and examples' in the first place.. Normally one would think that I have actually READ the fucking documentation in order to rightfully complain about it (obviously I have, fuckin christ) Btw, I don't play tennis.. and definitely not going to knock tennis especially if I haven't tried it or used a fucking tennis racket before. Words of advice: Get in touch with your inner programmer, try some newer ide's, possibly meditate, I don't know, drink some fucking almond milk, do some yoga, align your chakras, try a couple of other programming languages and maybe just maybe you'll come around to reality as some point. Honestly, Good Luck to you :] No hard feelings, but maybe read what the person actually said before you reply to another post and just spout off randomly at another poster on an obvious xcode sucks post. Why are you even here btw.. never mind, please don't answer that :]

            fuckapple 7 years ago   Reply

          • lmao.. drinking the punch a little long hanven't we? :] let me guess only a mac/apple dev right? Do you or have you even used any other ide's or programming languages? Btw, yes I have read the documentation for the things I have needed to find information for and honestly I find more coherent thought in a SO issue than anything apple has written. Not to mention the fucking layout of the documentation in general.. fucking horrible!! example below.. https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/navigation/#section=Topics&topic=Networking%20%26amp%3B%20Internet HORRIBLE!!! just sayin..

            fuckapple 7 years ago   Reply

  • I have been using Xcode 7 heavily and it never crashed on my new macbook. I love this IDE, it is working like a clock, very stable. I suppose it really depends on your personality and/or your macbook whether you like this IDE or not. In my view, Xcode 7 is very powerful and great IDE, but one needs to get used to it.

    Nikita 7 years ago   Reply

    • Never had issues with it either. It is my favorite IDE.

      7 years ago   Reply

      • And about the certificates...Once you understand how it works, there are no issues. But of course you need to do some reading. A lot of whiners here. Starting with the guy who created the post.

        7 years ago   Reply

    • I'm running on the most performing macbook purchased in October of 2015. Xcode crashes on me at least 5 times a day. Mostly around the storyboard and attributes.

      Josh 7 years ago   Reply

  • I have to agree 100% To add to the crazines. I just realized Xcode 7 was updated 3 times in almost 30 days 7.0 Sep 16 7.0.1 Sep 28 7.1 Oct 21

    Clyde 7 years ago   Reply

  • STFU XCODE IS BEAAST

    Sanchez 7 years ago   Reply

    • You really need to try other IDEs then. I can prove you wrong with this one point, how files open is ridiculous. There is no vertical tab or horizontally tabbed windows. Instead, I have to use an associate editor. Why? If I want a separate window, I have to drag a tab out, only to get another memory eating hog version of Xcode running. If I'm on a file and create a new file, was does the new file open over the current file? What if I wanted to keep that one open? Now, I have to click the back button, and then double-click the new file. That's just asinine.

      Josh 7 years ago   Reply

      • In Xcode 7 go to New, hover over it and you will see TAB. I’ve been using it for some time. Perhaps if you read the documentation?

        feloneouscat 7 years ago   Reply

      • not to mention the scrollbars are fucking ridiculously small. I always end up resizing the damn pane instead of scrolling down or up and when you actually do want to resize the pane the | (separator) doesn't even show up.. then if I use the mouse scroll wheel it scrolls to fucking far and I have to use the damn scrollbar.. never ending loop of shit.. and don't get my started with the never ending loop of testing on different types of devices ipad, ipad2, iphone, and the layouts for all of those.. ugh... totally asinine

        fuckapple 7 years ago   Reply

  • "Connecting UI elements to their IBOutlet is the most annoying thing I have ever done in an IDE", I guess there was no autolayout yet.

    HatingTheApple 8 years ago   Reply

    • A real IDE and a real programming environment would use modern approaches and not even require the auto layout or external auto layout frameworks. Half the time, Xcode gets it wrong when you let it auto-correct something. The other half of the time stuff goes red without any reason other than "you have to do...", why do I have to do ...? Let me have control over it. Let me do the alignments myself. Keep your drag n drop alignment and auto layout. I'll take WPF styles or CSS all day long compared their half-assed attempt at something.

      Josh 7 years ago   Reply

  • I am using XCode 6.1.1 and it still crashes quite often. Never thought an IDE can be so terrible but XCode successfully proved that I was wrong.

    EternalWind 8 years ago   Reply

  • Yes, Its sucks. Stupid compiling code, building, suggestions.

    Rico 8 years ago   Reply

  • I've just spent two hours trying to resolve an issue where Android Studio is stuck scanning files to index when I'm trying to launch an app... so... yeah

    Lou 8 years ago   Reply

  • okay, I've been using Xcode now for over five years. I work as an iOS developer, and also develop android apps. I nearly NEVER experienced any of the problems mentioned in this article, except it was an Xcode beta. I really hate eclipse, netbeans, visual studio, IntelliJ etc. I love Xcode and I can't even remember when it crashed the last time xD But the opinions can differ, that's just mine

    vincefried 8 years ago   Reply

    • Isn't the fact that many have issues and many don't prove Xcode is not stable?

      Josh 7 years ago   Reply

      • "Isn't the fact that many have issues and many don't prove Xcode is not stable?" No, if people use hackintoshes, for example. I used Xcode for 1/2 year no. It didn't crash even once... Yes, there are some things that need improvement, but Xcode is nowhere near as bad as Eclipse or Android studio. The latter sucks big due to a terrible device simulator.

        7 years ago   Reply

  • I agree on some of these points but I have to say being an Android developer and now staring ios in the past week, I have managed to build 75% of my android app in the first week of learning and googling how swift and xcode work. Apple does things very differently and the ide seems a bit like a toy but I have to say I a bit shocked how productive I was in the past week. No matter how good android studio or eclipse might be, figuring out how to properly build an Adapter for a listview in Android was absolute hell. Not to mention having to use 3rd party libraries (picasso etc) just to load images etc. So even though the ide does kind of suck the system as a whole ends up being fairly productive. Running x-code 6.3 on a mac mini.

    Frank 8 years ago   Reply

    • Having trouble building an adapter for a listview - Really? You have problems with coding? BTW, I have never need to use picasso 'just to load images' - ever. I've never had to use a third party library for android development - ever.

      Calling From the Rubber Room 6 years ago   Reply

  • XCode sucks! Its ridiculous!

    Joao 8 years ago   Reply

  • xcode is suitable for iOS development and nothing more.

    Ergpop 8 years ago   Reply

    • Don't give it too much credit. I've found it doesn't do iOS development very well.

      Josh 7 years ago   Reply

  • Please tell me I'm currently downloading Xcode and Ive looked it before I'm a beginner coder is this a good start? Also I've heard those this mess up my mac? PLEASE RESPOND

    person suit 8 years ago   Reply

    • Also I've hear this though does it meet up my mac?*

      person suit 8 years ago   Reply

  • Maybe I'm judging too soon.. but: in Android you define all the UI ("activities") with very nice XML files. In Xcode you are dragging things all the time. Can't I use XML?! I know the answer is probably: yes. But are these XML as nice as android activity XMLs?

    G. 8 years ago   Reply

    • Haha, XML is nice? Get out of here!

      7 years ago   Reply

      • RelativeLayout, LinearLayout, TableLayout... Mix and match as like. Use one or use them all. They are all so easy combined - with minimal effort. Use a Style to completely change the appearance, a complete new branding in two minutes! Now tell me how to do that with Interface Builder.

        Calling From the Rubber Room 6 years ago   Reply

      • Yes it is nice. You can control exactly what the layout does in there. Want it to fill the parent horizontally, be 10dp high and at the top? 3 lines (the ide helps you write) and it WILL work! ON ANY RESOLUTION! in xcode, you drag stuff around, open menus, change values, add constraints, change the values back and that's it. SO SIMPLE! (unless you want it to work on a different resolution or, God forbid, rotate the device.

        JennyS 7 years ago   Reply

  • What are you talking about?.. go home

    Asinox 8 years ago   Reply

    • Well, what do you have to say to the accusations then?

      Ryan 8 years ago   Reply

  • I have been programming for 3+ years now, and I have never seen such a terrible IDE. I have used Eclipse, BlueJ, Visual Studio, Mono develop, and XCode. Xcode is by far the worst IDE I have ever had to use in my life. In order for me to publish my application into the app store I have to use apple's proprietary software. I thought it would be a cake walk but I was so wrong. I will list my experience with xcode... 1. Xcode has crashed more than twice in the week period I tried to get my app to build (it still doesn't work). 2. Xcode has a knack for deleting what its trying to import. I really don't know why it does that but I found the folder I imported completely empty after I imported it 3. It wouldn't import a folder because it couldn't find a README.txt file within it. 4. No matter what, it throws a Apple Mach-O Linker error referencing a file I can't find documentation of anywhere. 5. It has corrupted my files more than once (yes, I have a brand new mac that is virus free). 6. Every time I build a project I will have the linker error, but sometimes when I don't change any settings but spam the build project button in frustration I will gain an additional 67 errors. 7. I had to reinstall Xcode at one point in time due to a fatal crash that deleted some of its own files while trying to build a project. You apple fan boys can stick with your little hot wheels car type of software while the professionals ride in our Ford Mustangs with the superior android and windows developer tools.

    Zach 8 years ago   Reply

    • "Every time I build a project I will have the linker error, but sometimes when I don't change any settings but spam the build project button in frustration I will gain an additional 67 errors" I think, you simply don't know what you are doing with it...

      Anton 7 years ago   Reply

  • I agree. Actually, there are more reasons. Probably, because of their ego, none of their developers, ever opened IntelliJ, Eclipse, Visual Studio nor Android Studio. Because of their ego, they have never really looked at Java to study why it is so great and powerful. Unbelievable that they are actually proud of being worst. addTarget(self, action: "myMethodAsAString?? really?", forControlEvents: UIControlEvents.TouchUpInside); Apple is going down.

    e.l 8 years ago   Reply

    • "Probably, because of their ego, none of their developers, ever opened IntelliJ, Eclipse, Visual Studio" I used notepad, Eclipse, VC and Android St for coding, before I started iOS dev. You are so far from reality that it is not even funny.

      7 years ago   Reply

  • total bullshit , stop coding for OS , that is not your thing .

    Kuramba 8 years ago   Reply

    • I completely agree.

      7 years ago   Reply

    • I am now using xcode 6. It's a bit better, but it still crashed hung and then crashed just yesterday!

      par 8 years ago   Reply

    • You are the total bullshit for saying that. Stop coding, that is not your thing.

      SanTria 8 years ago   Reply

  • Apple needs to fire entire Xcode development team. It is a piece of shit. Unfortunately, I have to use it because of iPhone popularity.

    Virendra 8 years ago   Reply

  • In the 3rd last line I meant to say: "It does NOT crash" Thanks.

    Don 8 years ago   Reply

  • I use Visual Studo, it cost about $ 800.00 and does work great. Xcode not as good but, its free. I seen it crash and there should be nothing I can do to make it crash. For me, in the apple world that's all I got to work with, is XCODE. I have installed Version 6.1.1 (6A2008a). I have used XCODE to write software to scan meta data files and play, select and copy to selected folders. This software worked great up until OSX 9.0 and now when scanning files to place in the library the pasifier panel sometimes stop updating, its still there and if I select the buttons then will work, but just will not update. It does crash. The version I build using XCODE 4 does the same thing. It seem to be problem introduced in MAVERICKS. Any ideas.

    Don 8 years ago   Reply

  • IMO: Visual Studio > Xcode > Android Studio > Eclipse I can live with Xcode, but in 6 series I have several problems with its git handling. It was far better before, now crashes at least once a working day, git reset is needed, forever looking for working instances processes etc.

    Tom 8 years ago   Reply

    • the order of IDEs seems fair...

      7 years ago   Reply

  • i dont wanna say more, simply hate have to work with Xcode.

    turbojoys 8 years ago   Reply

  • I fully agree with the writer of this article. I have encountered all the issues the author mentions here and a few more. Been using Project Builder and than Xcode since the days of NeXT, in 1994. Sorry to apple fanboys, Xcode sucks, compared to say Eclipse.

    Clyde 8 years ago   Reply

  • https://twitter.com/suxcode

    suxcode 8 years ago   Reply

  • The code samples posted and the insight into how you go about setting up your project hierarchy, file system, controllers, conditional logic, etc. leads me to believe that you are not a very seasoned iOS developer. The fact you name a UIImage instance 'theImg' and are using 'respondsToSelector' tells me that you are no stranger to 100+ line controller methods riddled with business logic. Spaghetti code is something that you deal with daily. Auto-Layout and storyboards are both straight-forward and easy to use if you actually know what you are doing. I am guessing that you are of the type that likes to think your job is done after selecting "Use Autolayout". It makes sense that you have worked as an engineering manager at companies that released web application as iOS apps. I think your bitterness stems from the fact that Xcode does not contain a template for HTML5.

    Marlo 8 years ago   Reply

    • Actually this post was written before AutoLayout ever existed. Note the 4.3.1 version. And the code snippet you are mentioning could be nothing more than an example to illustrate my point, you sure have drawn a lot of conclusions from 2 lines of code. A lot of wrong conclusions.

      par 8 years ago   Reply

  • I am currently trying to solve an issue where Xcode just uses up 5 GB of memory within a minutes and the crashes. After many failed attempts to fix the problem, i thought that upgrading Xcode 5 to 6 would do the trick. But it didn't. Gone are the times where increasing the major number in a version number indicated new software built from the ground. Instead, all it did as far i've seen was replacing the little icons in the project navigator with new, shittier ones. What a great piece of software. I can't wait for Xcode 7 to bring some more worthless UI changes that nobody cares about.

    Blaze 8 years ago   Reply

  • And "Archive" !? WTF happened to Release build ? Now I have NO idea where my files end up. Monumentally stupid!

    8 years ago   Reply

  • Xcode is crappy piece of software. Productivity factor is close to zero. I just love the compilation issue window where everything you want to see scrolls away when you try to look at it. And all the total non-intuitiveness! And with every new version, they manage to make it even worse.

    Robert 8 years ago   Reply

  • wow, Xcode rules man!

    Franky 8 years ago   Reply

  • Have you ever thought about cleaning up your system or do a clean install? Might solve a lot of issues. Xcode and interface builder are based on MVC that means you keep strictly code and interface objects separated. I am a experienced Delphi programmer and also thought XCode all sucked. But the problem really was the way of thinking how things worked. Making assumptions based on my experience (especially when you used to programming an interface dynamic). But its all about how things work not how other environments does work. System crashes can happen when u violate reference calls but thats also with Visual Studio, Delphi ... lets say any program language. Even if a language say it uses ARC always watch out for memory management.

    tom 8 years ago   Reply

    • having to make people do this kind of reinstall/clean sh^t stuff is truly against today's everything is going smart scheme, would you not agree

      turbojoys 8 years ago   Reply

  • And THIS is what happens when you replace seasoned, experienced programmers used to working in low-level languages with hipsters wearing skinny jeans and clutching lattes, blathering on about 'hacking' (hint: that word doesn't mean what you think it means), continuous integration (of shitty code), 'just-in-time' programming and all those other paradigms which are simply excuses for failing to care about the design, quality or scalability of the code you're writing. The poor quality of XCode is proof that this disease has reached the level of programmers responsible for creating new languages and frameworks. I shudder to think of what the Internet will look like in 20 years time. Probably one, massive, broken Facebook LIKE button.

    Derek 8 years ago   Reply

    • How would you suggest improving the current state of affairs within the comp sci industry. Right now you have a ton of college graduates coming out of school and looking for any job they can get their hands on. You can blame those hipster, latte drinking youngsters (which makes you sound like a grumpy, old, asshole) or you can point out that these recent graduates don't have the right experience yet. Or that their managers are working them to the breaking point; needless to say, I'm sure any developer out there has experienced the situation where you chose releasing shitty code over losing your job. In conclusion, I blame managers and people like you for bitching about the problem, but doing nothing to fix it. The director of engineering where I work has, what seems like, similar sentiments and it's not easy to work with (i.e. nobody is learning from a passive aggressive, judgmental manager who fails to see your perspective). Don't place the blame on one party, it takes two to tango. Give some good quality examples of how one should refactor their shitty code that's held together by strings (lol, literally <- a *literal* lol), and voila, you have the respect that an old timer, who knows what they're doing, deserves AND you've saved the industry from imploding in ten years - which you can bet is something that every latte clutching, skinny jeans wearing (should we include "fairies" like myself?), software engineer is also concerned about.

      Kevin Murphy 8 years ago   Reply

      • A big issue in my opinion is the fact that there is a framework for EVERYTHING these days. Most developers either download a pod/plugin/framework/SDK/jar/DLL/whatever for their shitty project and just jam it in or blindly copy from stack overflow (or whatever). Most programmers in my experience (10+ professional) hardly tackle complicated issues anymore, and when they do, often times it becomes a crazy spaghetti mess. Developers need to be more passionate about writing code and designing elegant, clean solutions. Even the games industry is starting to look this way with the emergence of things like Unity and it's marketplace. Stop copying and pasting from stack overflow, and think before blindly frankensteining things together to fit your "solution". It feels like the Xcode team just doesn't know which direction to push things, and are desperately trying to catch up with whatever the iOS team(s) are doing. And why the hell do the tabs in Xcode still not switch the text editor pane ONLY? Slow mess!

        Nick 7 years ago   Reply

    • THIS

      Mike 8 years ago   Reply

  • I agree. I have been a developer in these kind of environments for over 20 years. My favourite was the Borland suite. You never had to drag all these bits together to make things work. Best of all you did not need to write a heck of a lot of code to achieve basic results. I have now coded a whole day and could have achieved the same in seconds in Borland. Unfortunately this company is no longer around. I think Apple should take a hard look at how Borland did things. I feel like I have gone back a hundred years. It is no wonder that iPad apps lack so much functionality. I think the developers are exhausted. A table view or picker view should only take seconds.

    kevin 9 years ago   Reply

    • Exactly, delphi, c++ builder were almost perfect, their successor c# visual studio is also almost perfect. But who cares? There are no hardware this stuff could be useful for... What a fucking life =( And yes, xcode sux, it sux soooo deep, that it's even hard to start to enumerate all of this shit. Just open and face to it.

      Mario 7 years ago   Reply

  • You missed a lot of stuff here, but the main points are there. Also the fact that the latest (and "greatest") still has these problems shows that Apple doesn't care. I'd add one huge thing: the debugger is a joke. Got a variable for e.g. UILabel? Move mouse on top of it, you may get a dropdown. Which includes other dropdowns. Which never show all the properties anyway. So you need NSLog()s beforehand. So handy. You have a global variable? (Yes, they are sometimes needed) Debugger knows nothing about it. You have a variable definition two rows before breakpoint, then you set the value, then break. Xcode might say "variable out of scope" even though it has just been declared, initialized and it's also used after that point. In debug compilation. I could go on, but it's pointless. I know I'm spoiled by Visual Studio. It's not perfect, but it has had great debugging capabilities already in the 90s. Latest Xcode isn't even at the same level as VS 6.0. And the crashes, losing connection to simulator/device, etc... Oh, right. How about the fact that if you get a crash log from a user with, say, iPhone 5S with iOS 7.0.6 and all you have is iPhone 5 with iOS 7.0.6, you can't download symbols for the 5S to see where the code went! Or even if you have 5S with 7.1.0, you don't know where the 5S with 7.0.6 went. So Apple wants you to buy every single device, connect it to all your development machines with every single iOS version if you want to have the symbol files. So I'd really like to meet the guys who never have problems with Xcode and it never crashes etc. Because I really can't believe it. Oh, and I have to mention Interface Builder. It's such crap. And a CPU hog. Open a storyboard with 20 view controllers for the tenth time today, it still hogs one core of the CPU for a couple of minutes doing "something." Or the fact that you can't simply embed controls in another view. Yes, there is an option for that, but it loses all constraints etc. Or if you cut/paste, it might remove the view where you wanted to paste. Or if it doesn't, it surely won't paste them into the same position they were in the previous parent, it'll paste them where the mouse is! So you'll do the whole layout again. Editing XML would be simpler...

    Symbiatch 9 years ago   Reply

  • This is what happens when everybody gets to write a blog!

    Suckaaa 9 years ago   Reply

  • Actually I don't agree with most of what has been written above. I've been using Xcode since the very first public release and I use it on more than 300 days a year on projects with plenty of sub-projects (some have sub-projects as well), thousands of source files each, ten thousands of resources and probably a million of code lines. Once you deal with projects of that size and complexity, it's no problem to crash Visual Studio or Eclipse (well, actually Eclipse rarely ever crashes for real, it throws a huge pile of exception at you and leaves the whole app in a limbo state between operating and crashed). But the point I cannot understand at all is number (2). Xcode does not store files at all in the project, Xcode stores references to files in the pbxproj file and we never have our files in a flat hierarchy. And of course you can copy files from Finder to your Xcode project, just drag it from a Finder window to your Xcode project where you want the files to be. Xcode will then ask you if the if the files shall be really copied there or just referenced and stay where they are. Xcode groups (the yellow folder icons) can be just virtual groups (files are in the same directory, but displayed in different groups in Xcode) or they can be real directories (the group is backed up by a directory) in that case moving a file between the groups moves it also between the directories on disk that are backing up the groups. Also you can add directories either as groups (yellow folders) or as "folder reference" (blue folder). The difference is, if you place a new file into a referenced folder, it appears automatically in the Xcode project (it will only appear in groups, if you manually add it to the Xcode project, otherwise this is an unused file for Xcode).

    Mecki 9 years ago   Reply

    • Small error correction: Moving a file between groups will not move the files on disk, as groups are just plain virtual. A file may be located in any group, regardless where it is located at disc, those are two completely independent things. The idea is that you can have two "layout views". The real view in Finder and Terminal and the programmer view in Xcode and both may be the same, similar or entirely different. Usually you should not manage your project hierarchy on disk, manage it in Xcode. For those little folders where the disc layout is really important, use folder references in Xcode, so you can manipulate these folders (e.g. adding, deleting them) and these manipulation will be immediately visible in the project.

      Mecki 9 years ago   Reply

  • Xode isn't bad at all, and I have never and I mean never had it crash on me one single time. Gotta be another one of those foreign fucks that thinks writing "hello, World" is actual programming. Your a moron.

    What a moron 9 years ago   Reply

    • Nicely put ????

      6 years ago   Reply

    • You gotta be one of those xenophobic fucks that thinks insulting a person's place of origin is a viable substitute for intelligent discussion. You're an uncivilised bigot.

      Anonymous coward 8 years ago   Reply

      • Dude, like what the hell.

        6 years ago   Reply

    • My XCode crashed twice today already, and that is on a freshly installed OSX (latest), all updated and latest version of Xcode... I guess you one of those Apple groupies who enjoy being violated in weirds ways...

      Dan 9 years ago   Reply

  • i expect nearly all of this has been fixed by now???

    jason derulo 9 years ago   Reply

    • Maybe some of it, but since Apple re-vamped the GUI for Xcode in version 5, I can't find anything. All my tutorial books are now useless, so I haven't been able to use Xcode 5 at all yet. :(

      Nickster 9 years ago   Reply

  • Ever play with QtCreator? Want an event handler? Get ready to do some typing First create a handler in your .h file in the public slots: section. Next write your handler code. Then somewhere in your code once your UI has been created connect the item "connect(widget.exitButton, SIGNAL(clicked()), this, SLOT(close()));" Unless, of course, you're handling a special signal like "mouseMoveEvent(QMouseEvent *e)" which you must know about by conjuring up the spirits on google. ;)

    Jeff 9 years ago   Reply

    • C++ programming is not for amateurs... so you should stay away from it.

      Horia 8 years ago   Reply

  • Xcode actually has some nice features, like "Edit All in Scope", and code navigation is getting better, but it is still lightyears behind VS. Debugger sometimes breaks at the wrong line, going "back" is missing, because those little things the product just feels not finished! What about attention to the detail in other Apple products? Looks like the company is turning their back on the developers!

    Mike Lee 9 years ago   Reply

  • Im in University on my first year of a audio and music tech course and must say I find coding and Xcode so painful, my reason for doing the course was to create music electronically, is coding worth the hassle to learn for what I want to get from this course ???

    Tim 9 years ago   Reply

    • If producing electronic music is your goal, an IDE is not what you're looking for. I suggest you look into DAWs like Ableton Live 9 Suite.

      Abletoneer 8 years ago   Reply

  • get lost :p

    xcoder 9 years ago   Reply

  • Visual Studio is probably the best, but it has been around a great deal longer. I've developed on VS since pre-2010 version, Xcode since 3, and its actually very good considering its relatively new. The StoryBoards are an excellent tool in Xcode, and once you get good at it you can become very proficient. I don't have any crashes, but I do have a large amount of memory, and I keep my development machines free of stupid crap and shareware, and garbage utilities that often are the cause of crashes. But if you want to try a real piece of garbage IDE use one of 800 Eclipse version or any Google sponsored IDE's like the horror show know as Android Studio! Crashes, ADP disconnects, HORRIBLE.. all the time!

    9 years ago   Reply

    • Yes, compare Xcode (first stable version released 2003 - supports only Mac) with Android Studio (first stable version release 2015(!) supported on Windows, Linux and Mac)! You must have been using one of the Android Studio Beta versions.

      Calling From the Rubber Room 6 years ago   Reply

  • If you want to see an IDE that does GUI tooling correctly, Visual Studio is your guy.

    Dave 9 years ago   Reply

  • I'm using XCODE 5.0 and it didn't get all that much better since your posting. XCODE is the worst IDE I've had the misfortune of working on....and that's not just because I come from a VS background. It's a damn IDE, there should be absolutely nothing I can do from within the code to crash it. Ever. They need to scrap it and start over, and perhaps be forced to use their own tools once in a while because it is clear that they don't. It amazes me how apple can design physical devices and UI so elegantly that my 18 month of daughter knew how to use an iphone within an hour of getting her hands on it. But the development tool to build the apps that run on the platform is complete garbage.

    E in MD 9 years ago   Reply

  • I agree with a lot of the article. Today, I had Xcode crash and take my project files with it. I was able to spend about the 15 minutes to recreate them, but the last 2 hours of productivity traking down a hard-to-reproduce bug are lost - I have to start over. There is no excuse for the garbage that Xcode is. Even eclipse is better, which I'd never though I'd say, because eclipse is very difficult to actually get real work done with. I've used VS. VS has some problems, but in terms of stability of the environment, and stability of the debuger, nothing else is even in the same league.

    just_some_dev 9 years ago   Reply

  • I can only agree with you!! XCode really sux!! I've used hours on fucking drag+drop shit from storyboard to header-file. WTF have to restart xcode, to make it work! Why the fuck can I just code in VI, it's a far better editor anyway. And I mean VI not VIM!

    DNRN 9 years ago   Reply

  • "Are they f*&king smoking a pound of crack over there?" Correct me if i'm wrong, but i think it was LSD. ;-)

    Chris Berkvens 9 years ago   Reply

    • BTW LSD is a great drug, far better as a drug than XCode is a IDE!

      DNRN 9 years ago   Reply

  • I have used both, MSStudio/.NET and XCode/ObjectiveC which are both great in their ways. And have their glitches. Now, I use both for the same c++ project (c++ not being the main target language of either of both), and here is why I greatly prefer XCode: # Handling is much more fluent with large projects (Opening solution, jump-to-definition, starting a debug session, etc). As an example, MSStudio's jump-to-def is not usable at all with my solution (200 projects/ >1M codelines) since it's forever "Scanning Gazillions of additional #includes" *in the foreground*, while I'm blocked from working. # Better source control integration. Look at diffs, blames, logs, and bowse versions virtually as you type your code. This is built-in, no additional tool required. # You can run multiple compile/debug sessions at the same time. Also, while you have an old debug session running you can still start to recompile. # Comes with a full-featured profiler. Look at percentages of CPU time spent in each code line / asm instruction. # I use a lot of stdout logging. Console output of every debug session of the day is saved, so if you like to doublecheck the output of a previous build, just look it up (plus you get the console output in a real unlimited-size text window, not in the sh*tty DOS box). # I can configure the editor for hit-tab-to-auto-indent (emacs style) auto identation Of course this is my personal view, but not having these features makes my work slow and annoying on "MSStudio days".

    Johannes 9 years ago   Reply

    • Sounds like someone is still using VS6.

      placidcoder 9 years ago   Reply

    • Interesting. When using large projects, I find xcode either grinds to a halt or outright crashes. VS gets slower with extremely large codebases that have a lot of external dependencies. As for the rest of the features, VS has them, they actually work better, and it has code analysis that does a good enough job to pass as a first-stage code review.

      spotter 9 years ago   Reply

  • XCode 5 is much improved in many ways, but it still has a way of throwing a wrench into my workflow and causing me to waste time fixing stupid, trivial things that the IDE should figure out for me. This morning it refuses to find a .h file from a framework, unless said file was placed at the root level in the organizer...but I thought everything is a flat file, anyway? Hmmm...interesting. I began my programming career doing iOS and didn't realize how lousy XCode was until I got into .NET and Visual Studio. I can't stand Windows, but MS developer tools are so much more evolved and usable. AppCode is a far smarter IDE that can find and automatically fix problems that XCode would never even find. The problem is, I don't care for the interface...and you're still stuck using XCode at least part of the time because of Apple's walled garden. Also, how about a dark color scheme? I hate starting at white screen elements all day. It's hard on the eyes. Sure, I can make my code editor dark, but everything else is still white. Visual Studio and AppCode both have dark themes. I'm sure Eclipse does, too. Logic Pro has it. Why not XCode? This one little tweak would make me immensely happy.

    Reid 9 years ago   Reply

    • Put your code editor back to white. Then, if you're on Mavericks, go into your main System Prefs, Accessibility and click "invert colors" - BAYUM, everything dark. On some (maybe all?) previous OS X versions you could hit control-option-command-8 to toggle this.

      thedarkhelper 9 years ago   Reply

      • Not really the solution best solution. Not very elegant. Actually it looks like shit.

        Calling From the Rubber Room 6 years ago   Reply

  • I have to say I'm with you. Xcode 5 is really buggy. The auto-layout is undependable, lots of storyboard errors, the fix tool for constraints in the editor doesn't work much of the time. The issue navigator isn't always that much help when dealing with storyboard issues. I get lots of phantom error messages when more than one view uses the same pic file. Hours of wasted time doing things that took no time at all in Xcode 4. Hoping Apple issues some fixes soon.

    9 years ago   Reply

  • Well, I just loaded in Xcode 5. I mainly wanted to see if they fixed auto layout. After my 10 hours using it, it does seem much better. Autolayout seems to make sense to me now. All In all it seems pretty good.

    Art 9 years ago   Reply

    • Genius construction of thought.

      Alex 9 years ago   Reply

  • }}} Lol its not a toy for kids. You need to grow up and gain some experience to handle such classic development tools. I am right now feeling so proud that I handle this IDE so flawlessly and never face these problem. Don't get annoyed kid, you play eclipse and let big guys handle big things;) Dude, I've been coding for decades. I've chased down stack overflow bugs in someone else's BINARY libs using Turbo Debugger. I've been playing with Visual Studio and with Xcode (yes, on a hackintosh). I can tell you flat out that Visual Studio has its shortcomings, but Xcode is an annoying POS that doesn't even have a straightforward mechanism for deleting old projects. I've got a markedly trivial "noob" application that nothing manages to get rid of the references to, none of the suggested solutions on the internet work, that sucker is buried in there to STAY and it's a freaking zombie. Apparently, I'll never ever get to use that project name ever again. Yeesh. Xcode is hiding the info buried deep in its own innards such that you have to be a multi-year specialist to even get near it. This is ridiculous. I can go find the folders that VS keeps and delete them and that will get rid of all reference to the project's existence, as long as I didn't enable source code tracking. Not so for Xcode, which has its own magical giant ball o' goo system buried away and totally inaccessible from the user which ignores "Clean", ignores Any efforts to "remove references", ignores deletion from the menus, EVERYTHING. A simple-assed, OBVIOUS process like deleting a project permanently, and it's not just simple and straightforward. THAT is an "immature" product. Because deleting something should not be a complex process for the user. And given how old XCode is, it's got no excuse whatsoever for being "immature". I hate Microsoft, but, frankly, Apple is making me appreciate them. >:-/

    Old Goat 10 years ago   Reply

    • Sorry, but you sound like another blinded fool (who properly being paid for scanning the net for blogs who are slacking down anyone who says anything bad about Apple products). Sadly you don't seems to realise, if Apple should make better tools, Apple would actual need to do some real work, instead of having people like you 'repairing broken tools with words'...

      Dan 9 years ago   Reply

    • I hear ya, I've have similar experiences.

      stacker 9 years ago   Reply

    • You are a big noob

      9 years ago   Reply

  • I bet you run a cheap ass Hackint0sh. XCode connects to the emulator 100% of the time and crashes maybe once a week during a 50h work week.

    Dude 10 years ago   Reply

    • Or just run VS and never crash, have it always work - never worry about the tool again.

      lololololol 9 years ago   Reply

  • Yea you obviously aren't really using Xcode right or very often. I used to dislike Xcode when I didn't know how to use it. Now that I am very experienced with it I hate using anything else.

    Actual Programmer 10 years ago   Reply

  • SDK changes are common on every platform and have nothing to do with xcode. I have seen android developers struggle to build their own UIScrollview-alike controls because their SDK didn't even have one out of the box:-D Just go back to Eclipse and stop whining.

    10 years ago   Reply

  • What to do? Throw all apple toys and get to REAL programming - on PC.

    Helga 10 years ago   Reply

    • the pc is dying and so are you

      bud 9 years ago   Reply

  • Lol its not a toy for kids. You need to grow up and gain some experience to handle such classic development tools. I am right now feeling so proud that I handle this IDE so flawlessly and never face these problem. Don't get annoyed kid, you play eclipse and let big guys handle big things;)

    Vishal 10 years ago   Reply

    • Flinging insults at people, saying they are kids who need to grow up, only shows exactly who really is the immature one. It's great that you don't get the same problems as this guy. It's also great that plenty of people who have the same car as me didn't have the accelerator cord break on them. You need to understand that different environments will have different issues and results.

      8 years ago   Reply

  • Somewhere between Eclipse's insistence that everything in your directory tree needs to be compiled into the project and XCode's flat project structure that is pseudo-organized into groups is a happy medium. And what do you know, we find that again in Visual Studio in 1998. It followed your directory structure but didn't insist on trying to build everything it found there into your project.

    Craig Again 10 years ago   Reply

  • What's ironic is Visual C++ 6.0 created the code for its user interface objects, and that was in 1998. I've been working with Interface builder for iOS since it was introduced and it STILL doesn't do what we were doing in Windows CE in 1998.

    Craig 10 years ago   Reply

    • And that is exactly what makes Xcode such a sad piece of work. It is now 2017, but Xcode doesn't know it.

      Calling From the Rubber Room 6 years ago   Reply

  • xcode really sucks, regardless what IDE I ever uses, xcode now has 100% posibility drains CPU cycles when I uses built-in git commit function,(xcode 4.6.3) I think Apple should open xcode's source code, use the power of community to fix all xcode's bugs, as a developing environment of Mac OSX, xcode's score is under 60, now I use jetBrains IDE, it's a little like eclipse, yes, it is very slow, but it is stable.

    laudmankimo 10 years ago   Reply

  • I do not like Xcode. Visual Studio being able to double click your components and then write your code to it is INTUITIVE. Wiring an interface together in Xcode is the most ass-backwards thing I've seen yet. Objective C is a convoluted pool of what-fuck-is-going-on that I've coded in thus far. I use Xcode because I have to, not because I want to. I prefer using a Mac over Windows by leaps and bounds which is the only reason why I tolerate it.

    One opinion 10 years ago   Reply

    • Um, JetBrains IDE is slow? You mean AppCode? That is very odd, I find it to be much much faster than XCode (and as you noted, much more stable). It indexes much faster and, unlike XCode, it does not mess up the index. Refactoring is instant where XCode takes ages for even local changes. Even the basic editor is faster and more responsive in AppCode, never mind that it has so many auto-complete and fix-it tools that I find myself writing a large part of my code by simply pressing ALT+enter. I use XCode only for IB and archiving (and for constantly keeping one of 4 CPU cores busy doing... well .. nothing, it seems :) ) . Yes, XCode does indeed suck big time, but then again, all IDEs do if you compare them to anything from JetBrains.

      Nj 9 years ago   Reply

  • Too stupid to use this IDE ?

    Megalite 10 years ago   Reply

    • Too stupid to try another IDE ?

      9 years ago   Reply

    • "Too stupid to use this IDE ?" I loathe Xcode. Of the big 3 IDEs, it is definitely the worst. Visual Studio is the best thing Microsoft ever made, Eclipse is pretty impressive for being a big open source project. Xcode demonstrates that apple isn't all that interested in investing in tools for developers.

      Megalite works for apple? 10 years ago   Reply

      • Those are not the "Big 3 IDEs" - you aren't a programmer if you have only ever used three IDEs. What are you, making free fart apps to impress your sister?

        Big 3 my ass 10 years ago   Reply

        • What are you, a fascist? I don't agree with you, so you aren't a real programmer. Are you kidding me? Maybe he is working on hundred million line projects, you simpleton. While you play in the sand with your 40 year-old text editors, some of us have real work to do. So, why don't you go find yourself some stupid javascript hack to work on, you script kiddie!

          praetor 9 years ago   Reply

        • So what is a "big 3 IDE", punk? Amuse me. Tell me what IDE you are aware of which has *more* users than those? And I've used about 30-50 different IDES (lost count a long time ago). Never saw one that didn't allow a straightforward simple deletion of a trivial app (i.e., "hello world" level).

          Old Goat 10 years ago   Reply

          • big 3 for real programmers: vim, emacs, nano big 3 for everybody else: eclipse, visual studio, xcode

            bud 9 years ago   Reply

            • You forgot Notepad++ Can't do any serious Html, css 'programing' without Notepad++

              Calling From the Rubber Room 6 years ago   Reply

            • vim, emacs and nano are NOT IDEs. Would think with your awesome l337 experience you would know the difference between an IDE and a text editor.

              not ides 9 years ago   Reply

  • This IDE stinks. Eclipse is a shit. Free developers tools are a real nightmare. Never works. And no one is the culprit

    Will 10 years ago   Reply

    • Xcode is much better now in version 8

      6 years ago   Reply

  • Flash Code - you're a fucking racket and you suck - eat shit!!!

    Vandor 10 years ago   Reply

  • Creating native and HTML5 apps is no longer a problem. Due to user friendly and flexible online app building platforms it is really easy to get an app in the Appstore and Google Play even if you have no programming skills. Among the services I used myself I would recommend Snappii as their opportunities in mobile app development seem to be endless and can suit any business needs.

    vlad 10 years ago   Reply

  • It makes me die a little inside every time I use this IDE.

    Word 10 years ago   Reply

    • Xcode killed my inner child... :~~~( LOLZ

      Old Goat 10 years ago   Reply

  • I disagree SOOOOO much with you that it's not worth even arguing. Just buy yourself an Android Phone, a Windows 8 computer and you'll be back to XCode in 5 minutes aprox. Not longer. I absolutely LOVE XCode, with all it's flaws.

    t0t3m 10 years ago   Reply

    • Yes, because I love paying $2000.- for a Mac (that is sooo much prettier than my $900.- notebook) and paying another $99/year for the 'privilege' to be an iOS developer and then jump though hoops just to get a provisioning profile to even test my software for people who are overstrained by a device that has a back button on it. Btw, my windows notebook doesn't have to 'think' for about five minutes just because I have to 'Finder' windows open! I am absolute sick of seeing that stupid spinning color wheel!

      Calling From the Rubber Room 6 years ago   Reply

    • Xcode sucks, give me android or visual any day. I fucking hate it. Forced to code on xcode and it fucking sucks asses. Have to make 4 lines what eclipse does in 1. Pure shit

      Wrong 9 years ago   Reply

  • Agree - and so much more. I can't believe I'm forced to use a Mac to write code for iPad - it's 2013!!

    Lorne 10 years ago   Reply

  • What da fuck is this shit I just read?

    Stfu 10 years ago   Reply

  • Finally, while eclipse used to have significant issues around the use of plugins, these issues - at least in the core java, java 2EE space seem pretty much resolved. Some of the features available in Eclipse would make very useful additions to XCode (see below).

    Chris 10 years ago   Reply

  • Another salient and important difference is around file handling. 'Groups' and 'folders' (yellow and blue folders in Xcode) - interesting notion but I think it's just simpler (and hence) better to just have files/folders in the IDE match those on the file system. File references are complicated and can lead to weird errors which are time consuming to track down. The amount of 'memory' saved is irrelevant hence the feature benefit is totally outweighed by the feature cost.

    Chris 10 years ago   Reply

  • Eclipse has some nice features - like listing class methods in a separate window - so one doesn't have to scroll endlessly to find any given method in the main panel. it also has the ability to quickly show class hierarchies - very handy. are either of those two (basic) features available somewhere in XCode?

    chris 10 years ago   Reply

  • in my opinion, it's the integrated interface builder that sucks. never never never look at a .xib file in xcode 4.x. even scrolling over one will trigger the memory weasel. dont upgrade. keep old versions for sanity sakes. use xcode 3.2

    10 years ago   Reply

  • I do have a much easier way to wire up your outlets/IBActions: Go into assistant mode while looking at your .xib/storyboard. If you are using a storyboard, make sure the view controller you want to wire up is selected. Control-drag from the outlet/control to the appropriate place in the code file...you'll get a dialog box which allows you to specify outlet/action (it generally guess correctly depending on the type of UI element) and allows you to name it, and specify the type of action (touch up inside, etc.) There are several ways to wire up actions/outlets but this is the quickest, I think. It writes them for you. As for the rest...I'll be honest, XCode is all I know so I have no basis for comparison. That said, other than the occasional crash, it works fine for me. I tried AppCode and found it to be a less intuitive interface. Unfortunately, if you're going to develop for iOS you are going to have to use XCode for at least *some* things, so you may as well get used to it. If it's so god-awful, develop for Android. That's all.

    Reid 10 years ago   Reply

  • Oh by the way, if you don't understand the blue lines, be sure to read a book or two about MVC!

    Mark 10 years ago   Reply

  • What the... Are you sure Xcode crashes that often? Or are you using new software on old hardware? That'd be pushing it, no wonder you get all those errors and crashes -.- I use Xcode, Eclipse and Visual Studio along with some shitty syntax-highlighting shitty notepad replacements, and I prefer Xcode over any of the other ones... It's fast, stable, has a no-nonsense UI (other IDE's like ECLIPSE could learn from this), has outstanding code completion (better than Intellisense) and is ready to go out of the box (where's your Eclipse now eh?)! No shitty plug-ins for either C++, Git or anything else... Just as it should be! Shame we can't use it for writing code in C#...

    Mark 10 years ago   Reply

    • Xcode has a great code completion? Umm, no. It might do it right sometimes, many times it even forgets what type the object is and starts listing some global things. Sometimes it gives out nonsense. Usually it's just in the way, unlike e.g. Visual Studio. I'll give you that it has a better UI than Eclipse, but it's far from good. So many things here and there and you really need a 27" monitor with huge resolution to actually work with Interface Builder. Visual Studio and GUI design can be done on a netbook without that much problems, since you don't need to drag rubberbands, you can do stuff while zoomed out etc. Xcode? No such luck.

      Symbiatch 9 years ago   Reply

    • Xcode crashes more than any other piece of software I've ever used. I would estimate that in the last 2 years it's crashed 80 or more times. When working with Visual Studio for over 4 years I only ever had it crash 3 times, and those were due to a crappy plugin. Xcode is a poorly written IDE. It doesn't mean Apple makes bad products, it just means that as a company they don't put the same resources into their IDE as other products.

      D 10 years ago   Reply

    • Love Xcode, OSX. I love Apple as they love developers... When I started iOS development I've had OSX Lion and I was happy. It worked fast. But iPad 3 appeared and new iOS. So I needed to update to newest XCode. But, no, no - new XCode won't work on Lion, Apple said - you have to upgrade whole f...ng system to Snow Leopard and pay money for that ! Don't want new OSX !!!! But what could I do ? For every f.. new iOS version I need to update to new Xcode and often update OSX (!!!). After dozen updates, OSX+XCode working like they wanted to kill hd drive as soon as possible. XCode 4.6.2 starts from 200MB and after few hours working on one project, take 2GB RAM ... And the last v. funny thing - can't develop for iOS 4.2 and lower... I need to have separate instance of old XCode. Very,very,very professional... One little thing says a lot like Apple treats developers. Whole f... world is using TAB to move selected block of code to the right in almost every f... IDE. But no, Apple is better,different. Apple is reinventing f... wheel and to move selected block of code to the right you have to use CMD+] ... There is a lot more but I don't have a day to write it all. Don't get me wrong - I'm using Eclipse and I'm not Eclipse fanboy. It's just a tool and has many disadvantages but doesn't drive me crazy like XCode and Apple policy. And is working smoothly on hardware twice slower than my Macbook Pro (4GB,7200RPM,Core2Duo).

      idg 10 years ago   Reply

      • what he said

        me 9 years ago   Reply

      • Errata. OSX Snow Leopard and then OSX Lion ...

        idg 10 years ago   Reply

  • Yeah, I've used many, many compilers and IDEs...XCODE takes the cake for the fail. Designer shouldn't be focusing their time on connecting items like IBOutlets, etc. We're designing user interface after all! I think Apple purposely made it like that to weed out all the intelligent programmers. @Sean...have you ever tried other compilers and languages? Good thing is HTML5 (Intel SDK) is growing and will replace xcode and objective-c.

    NothinRandom 10 years ago   Reply

  • XCode is excellent. Objective-C rocks as a language. Please stop touting your "multiple languages" and "years of experience" That means nothing if you can't realize that eclipse is a rat's nest of half-baked add-ins with a poor, poor UI. Apple has more apps in its app store than any other company. Over 300,000 and growing hourly. Considering every app needed to hit Xcode at some point, it must work somehow. Don't be a hipster in Computer Science, my friend. That only leads to poor logic and poorer commenting. You are a very good complainer. -Sean

    Sean 10 years ago   Reply

    • }}} Apple has more apps in its app store than any other company. --------------------------------------------- MEMO: Earth to SEAN -- Sorry, it's been like 2 years since Android passed Apple in app count. Why do you think Apple dropped its "there's an app for that" commercials?

      Old Goat 10 years ago   Reply

    • objective rocks what??? mixing primitive and high level language concept into one is design suicide. xcode is the worse IDE I've ever encountered and I'm better of using plain text editor. and wait, xcode doesn't even want to be transparent about UI object in plaintext, but force you to drag around a bunch of nameless UI objects. Not to mentioned invisible bugs and IO problems. Even microsoft visual shit-studios tell you the button names ffs. The SDK? It is so poorly designed partially thanks to the crappy language chosen that you wish they started with old C++ instead. Go bury yourself beside steve jobs seriously.

      lam 10 years ago   Reply

    • Eclipse is not ideal and has many bugs but comparing to XCode .... Eclipse is developer heaven - XCode - hell. Everyone that used both will tell you that...

      idg 10 years ago   Reply

    • Yeah, Sean is right.

      Mason 10 years ago   Reply

      • What a load of bull. Typical fan boy response. The fact that there are 300,000 apps means nothing other than that there is money to be paid in this sector and therefore developers will put up with the sh** IDE at all costs. It does NOT indicate that xcode is any good. Xcode is a disgrace.

        Steven 10 years ago   Reply

        • I disagree. In my opinion, Eclipse is a big piece of convoluted garbage. Xcode is a joy compared to Eclipse. Call me a fanboy if it helps you sleep at night, but I couldn't care less. If you can't realize people have different needs and preferences, that's your problem. I really don't see the problem connecting IBOutlets. It isn't that hard. Ctrl-drag from code to item, or other way around, or use the inspector to drag to and from the object.

          Gustav 10 years ago   Reply

          • xcode tries too hard to be smart. perhaps suits the less intelligent dudes who can't handle plain txt.

            lam 10 years ago   Reply

  • Try AppCode from IntelliJ

    Rossi 10 years ago   Reply

  • Xcode makes Visual Studio look ELEGANT!

    Sunny 10 years ago   Reply

    • Wow. The fannish is strong in this one. VS is a mature product. Xcode is a half-assed POS that you can't even delete simple projects from, which infest it and become zombie components that will ever haunt your development processes by popping themselves in whenever you inadvertently use the same name. GOOD DESIGN. Yeah, Xcode just rocks!! FEH.

      Old Goat 10 years ago   Reply

  • 2.3 Ghz Intel Core i5, 8GB 1333 MHz DDR3 and Xcode crashes! 8 hour/day, 5day/week and i noticed 2-3 crashes in a day! Xcode just shut down without any message box, any bug number, nothing! Only iOS-fanboys can enjoy this shit, but unfortunately we haven't got enything else :(

    yolo 10 years ago   Reply

  • I had to use XCode in these days. I cannot believe its lack of functions. I must admit it's fast, much faster than eclipse but, for example, its support of svn repositories is absolutely a scandal, hard to believe that someone accepted to release this feature at this state.

    ldg 10 years ago   Reply

  • totally agree. i have some things to add to the list of hate: error checking is rubbish. for fucks sake if autocorrect can fix my crap spelling on mu iphone surely xcode can do better. when a program crashes it just sens you to the same bit of code every time. SHOW ME WHERE THE ERROR IS! give me some decent feedback! sometimes it just cannot be bothered to do autocomplete for minutes at a time. lots of other stuff

    jonny 10 years ago   Reply

  • 1. I use XCode at least 8 hours a day, at least 5 days a week and haven't seen a single crash in the last at least 4 weeks. It did happen more often in the past, but not that much really... 2. I never noticed the project file was flat, and don't really care about that. IMHO, XCode is quite smart in managing its assets. 3. Honestly if you are a professional iOS dev, you'd better use real devices for testing most of the time. I don't use simulators that often but haven't seen that "failure" you mentioned. Actually I don't even know what it means... 4. CTRL + ALT + ESCAPE and you can kill it. Never checked the zombies... who cares about them if everything is still fast and stable? Or maybe you should upgrade your RAM. I upgraded from 4GB ~> 8GB and it's such a massive improvement. 4GB is simply not enough for XCode or any other intensive things on Mac. Cost only $50 compared to $1000 - $2000 you spent on the Mac itself. 5. iOS 4? Maybe it's not valid now. 6. Man, you don't understand Interface Builder. 7. XCode has some very f***ing annoying bugs, like hanging when I try to print an ivar or an invalid variable, but sorry I don't agree with most of your points :)

    K 10 years ago   Reply

    • It would be so much fun transplanting you kids back to the 80s, when memory and CPU was expensive, and you couldn't just tell people their machines were 2 years old and needed to be upgraded. You kids would shit your pants trying to write something that fit into 48k.

      Old Goat 10 years ago   Reply

    • 4GB RAM is not enough ???!!!! I've worked on java project with almost 1mln lines of code, hundreds forms,tables,maven,svn etc. and 4GB was enough. But no,not for this Xshit ... Xcode starts from 200MB and after few hours working on ONE SINGLE project take 2GB RAM (!!!!) Do they know in Apple what deallocate is for ???!!!

      idg 10 years ago   Reply

  • Xcode not responding lol

    peter 10 years ago   Reply

  • why the fuck does it show me assembly when i switch the bugger off???

    Bob Bobbington 10 years ago   Reply

  • fuck xcode

    10 years ago   Reply

  • i hear ya buddy. its wasting precious time

    igor 10 years ago   Reply

  • oh god xcode uses a lot of resources even more than exclipse! and when i wan'y to restart it stops working, come oooooonnn

    ad 10 years ago   Reply

  • oh god xcode uses a lot of resources even more than exclipse! and when i wan'y to restart it stops working, come oooooonnn

    ad 10 years ago   Reply

  • To all the people who say "Xcode is crap" and/or "Xcode sucks" and/or "Apple is rubbish" or any other blindly ignorant comment, I have this to say to you: You only rant about Xcode because *you* don't understand how to use it. Having an opinion is part of free will - enjoy it, but that doesn't make Xcode bad; it's great, and half of you are luddites it seems. Wherever one ventures online, there are "WE LOVE <X product>" groups, and then others who say "We HATE <X product". If you do not like Xcode, step away from the computer, move on in your life, and get over it; ranting on blogs is for fools who want other fools to say "yes, *I* agree", which is a false way of you validating your biased opinions. Noone cares really - use what you like, and abandon what you dislike. However, if you left it alone for two years as I did, then suddenly returned, I bet you'd LOVE it, as your focus had been elsewhere all that time, giving your poor, irrationally irritable mind a break from the frustrations that come about because YOU don't understand something - that doesn't make IT bad.

    Matt 10 years ago   Reply

    • }}} You only rant about Xcode because *you* don't understand how to use it. Having an opinion is part of free will - enjoy it, but that doesn't make Xcode bad; ------------------------------- This is somewhat correct. The problem is that Xcode doesn't make simple operations simple, and there's no excuse for that. In at least some cases, the operations being asked for should be simple and obvious, because the actions involved are simple and basic -- they're things EVERYONE needs to do regularly... so when I want to delete a "hello world" project, and it's giving me fits, that's the mark that Xcode SUCKS. It's evident from reading between the lines on my internet searches that Xcode is keeping crap in a giant ball of goo -- and that's ALWAYS a RETARDED design technique. It's EASY on the coders of the development tool, but it's a fucking nightmare for the users anytime things get messed up, and this ALWAYS happens. It's like the way car manufacturers optimize their vehicles for putting them together in the factory but not for taking them apart to fix anything. You fix things constantly, you don't put them together in a factory constantly. So doing things to make YOUR life easier, as a tool developer, is BAD DESIGN PRACTICE. And it's clear that Xcode does exactly that. ---------------------------- P.S., Apple: Join the fucking 21st Century and implement TOOL TIPS.

      Old Goat 10 years ago   Reply

    • my dear ignorant and/or brainwashed poster, does it occur to you that you are addressing (!)professional(!) community here. Most of us have experience with multiple languages/os/IDE, we actually know what we are talking about. As was said in the article - XCode is completely embarrassing for a company like Apple, not because they are horrible at what they do , but it is actually because they set industry standards on UI usability and UI intuitiveness. As a devoted MacOS follower and as a programmer with many, many, many years of development experience, doezen programming languages , 6 distinct OS etc , I can definitively state that XCode sucks mor than IBM 360 interactive debugger of 1992 . Reasons are very well outlined in this beautiful politically incorrect article.

      me 10 years ago   Reply

      • Having experience with multiple things doesn't mean you're smarter. It's the same as getting older isn't the same as getting wiser. Actually since most other platforms are somewhat similar, and XCode is quite different, you'll likely have a mental barrier, which eventuallly lead to blaming XCode like this. Can't pour more water into a cup that has been filled.

        David 10 years ago   Reply

        • Why isn't this a youtube response? Complete idiocy. In CompSci, there is a damned good chance that people who have been at it longer ARE actually smarter than you. They were smart to begin with, and they are the types to really try new things regularly. I'm in that category. I've used everything from Makefiles to visual studio. On a mac, you're better off developing with makefiles than you are using xcode. Apple can do many things well, but a good IDE is not one of them.

          idiot detector 9 years ago   Reply

        • Mental barrier - interesting concept. This is another thing to add to the list then. There is no reason, no reason whatsoever that XCode should be different. Code editor, resource editor, compiler output, and debugger == IDE. If you feel you need to invent new language (segue) and constantly shifting UI (jumping the hopes to find the actual compiler error, switching between the views to get properties for objects that are already on the screen, windows that cannot stay open on the screen, in fact the whole disastrous concept of the views in the XCode, flat representation of the inherently hierarchical project and my ABSOLUTE favorite XCode 'feature' opening multiple windows for the the same source file ) - you probably should have stayed in academia instead of doing real world programming. As I said XCode might look impressive to a 3rd grader, but not the professional programmer, in my opinion, it is over-complicated, dysfunctional , unstable clusterfu..k. Being different does not translate to being the best or even being good. In my opinion being different in case of XCode is a stated goal and as such it is a huge handicap.

          me again 10 years ago   Reply

          • I've worked in academia and professionally. I agree with "me". I think that Objective-C is good enough (generics would be nice . . . but I like direct C integration and memory control). I like the move towards sane conventions and removing the number of steps towards achieving an end. XCode is fine as an IDE / workflow, but its more that its about 5-10 years behind numerous Java , as well as Python, RoR, etc. (and I imagine .NET and QT). Additionally, I don't think it plays nicely with others. I would suggest using App Code, though (from IntelliJ) as it at least makes things like renaming methods / classes, finding usage, etc. trivial unlike the equivalent in XCode.

            yoyo 10 years ago   Reply

    • Matt, it's you who is ranting about something doesn't understand and I think you can't understand how Xcode is bad even if it usually (barely) works because you are a bad programmer and/or without any real software development experience except perhaps few line of code written at school of for your own fun. Learn what real work is and then you will understand how bad is Xcode. Or perhaps you work somewhere in the Xcode team...

      10 years ago   Reply

    • The only people who don't think Xcode is crap are people that have never used a proper quality IDE before, like IntelliJ, NetBeans or Eclipse. Xcode is so far behind these IDE's in terms of features and performance that it's not even funny.

      dino 10 years ago   Reply

      • I've used NetBeans and Eclipse. For me, Xcode is much nicer to work with than those. There. You are wrong. How about you like what you like and let others like what they like?

        Gustav 10 years ago   Reply

    • Fact that i have to wait 5 minutes for xcode to move a few files from folder to the other is absolute BS

      Daniel 10 years ago   Reply

    • Sorry, i dont care what you say, XCode is useful and you can get work done on it, but it fucking sucks..

      Daniel 10 years ago   Reply

    • I understand it and it sucks. It crashes a few times a week. An IDE that crashes a few times a week sucks.

      Jeff 10 years ago   Reply

  • I never programmed for apple products before, I started to use xcode on my virtual machine running on win7 just to try.. well it's a very painful switch from conventional programming, why apple did it in this way I've no idea, however I only experienced crashing a couple of time in more then 200 hours working in xcode, mostly because of my bad programming in xcode.. if it works so well on vm I would think it's fantastic running on apple computers..

    batman 10 years ago   Reply

  • lol i think you have a borked install i guess...better you develop for the blackberry or windows phone..ive never encountered such issues with xcode except for some extremely rare crashes

    lol 10 years ago   Reply

  • If you hate Xcode that much... wait until you try and develop app on Blackberry

    lol lol lol 10 years ago   Reply

    • True ;)

      Smriti 10 years ago   Reply

      • LOL, why would anyone try and learn how to develop on the Blackberry? It's dead and gone. That's like trying to develop for MS-DOS based systems. Yeah, it had a time but it's no longer useful. Whatever existing cadre of Blackberry developers exist mostly need to be looking to develop new skills for something that's expanding its user base.

        Old Goat 10 years ago   Reply

  • is this supposed to be a joke of some sort ..

    test 10 years ago   Reply

  • Ah, India

    Bob 10 years ago   Reply

    • I live in Brooklyn dude.

      par 10 years ago   Reply

  • Thank you SO much for posting this. I have been developing using xCode for the last 6 months or so, and I was facing number 3 and 4 from your list TIME and time again and I always thought that I must be doing something horribly wrong to get these errors, and I must be totally stupid for not understanding why they are happening. Thank you for helping me realize that this is a problem it seems that EVERYONE is facing - and lets all hope together that apple gets its shit together and solves this problem.

    Salman 10 years ago   Reply

  • It sucks, piece of garbage, I can hardly believe apple has such success with this low quality software.

    Peter 10 years ago   Reply

  • I hated Xcode for a while. I used MS Dev Studio for many years and the change was painfull. After a few months I prefer it. It has certainly has issues but you learn to appreciate the things it does well, often better than MS Dev. Just have an open mind, be willing to learn different ways of doing things. The debugger is not as stable as MS Dev. Thats the only real complaint I have about it. It earlier versions did crash on me a few times, that hasn't happened in a while. I miss being able to edit code on the fly as you can running native with MS Dev. But then, MS Dev doesn't let you do that on a phone either. Using MS Dev I miss being able to view source by single clicking its name, and pressing Cmd-Up to get to a header file. I also prefer the way Xcode marks syntax errors while you type.

    10 years ago   Reply

    • I think it needs a bit more than "an open mind" to move to an environment where debugging is done vis NSLog() (since the debugger many times can't show variable contents, even in the 5.x versions), there are crashes without any exception info (storyboards especially), Interface Builder causes inconsistencies itself (and then complains that it has to correct them) etc etc. So if "an open mind" means "forget that things can be done correctly and accept that it'll be pain", then true. Otherwise, no. And I've used Xcode for years, so I'm not a beginner. It just doesn't work.

      Symbiatch 9 years ago   Reply

  • Xcode just sucks because it's xcode

    10 years ago   Reply

  • can't agree more

    ??? 10 years ago   Reply

  • I just got a Macbook Retina and starting with iOS development. Interestingly enough I can confirm every single problem reported here, though just having a few weeks experience with Xcode. The most horrible bug I found is that if you do a global find replace, Xcode will take a Snapshot of your dev environment, unless you disable the feature. This is starting an infinitive process where in minutes your entire HD space is being eaten up. Well, it depends on your HD space of course. I have a 256 GB SSD with 45 GB free space. The process managed to eat up 20 GB in 15 minutes. To stop this you need to kill Xcode, reboot the machine and clean up the snapshot directory. I could reproduce this with every global find and search, until I disabled the snapshot feature. Having said this, I haven't come to the point yet to hate the IDE. I do Flex development with Flash Builder (Eclipse) and it has many issues too.

    I have another horrible issue... 10 years ago   Reply

  • I built Canappi, an Objective-C code generator. Canappi is like IB+SB but in a textual form (no need to "drag'n drop". I created an Eclipse plugin for the editor. Last but not least you can create data models and API descriptors to talk to all kinds of back-ends, including MongoDB. It's not a commercial product. You can use it for free. Here are a couple of links that explain: a) how it works with MongoDB: http://www.ebpml.org/blog2/index.php/2012/09/24/build-data-services-in-minutes b) how easy it is to support dual-resolution, dual-form factor: http://www.ebpml.org/blog2/index.php/2012/09/13/easy-iphone-5-screen-resolution

    JJD 10 years ago   Reply

  • Pretty sad but at WWDC 2012 Xcode has issues in at least two of the presentations...

    JJ 10 years ago   Reply

  • XCode sucks. You click %B to launch a build and there is little or no visible feedback. If you have the temerity to click %B again, THEN it will tell you "I'm already building - do you want to cancel?" Or you can "stop" a build, and that takes awhile, and if you hit stop again, you'll get an "I'm already stopping" message. The fact that either of those is ever happening indicates many problems.

    dg 11 years ago   Reply

    • The toolbar at the top of the window has a central box which shows that program is building, or running, or doing neither. What do other IDE's do that is so much better?

      10 years ago   Reply

  • Here's the thing with Apple, they have to be unique, even if it is terminally unique (adds to their hype). Also, the entire model for the company is control. And when you write something in Xcode, I actually feel controlled. That have to appear to be substantially different than other products, even when they are actually taking ideas from them. But if it is something visual that people will notice, they have to add their Apple spin to let everyone know they somehow found a better way. Xcode is no different. The Mac OS is similar. For instance, why not follow Windows and have a tabs at the bottom for open programs/files and sort them by program/file type? The weird thing is how the culture of mac users reflects all of this. Ask a simple question on a mac forum, and most replies are "why do you want to do that? do this instead". The answerer has no idea why you want to do something with an array, etc; but offer you this incorrect high level criticism. It is like going to Home Depot and asking for a piece of wood and the guy saying "oh no, you don't want wood, you want this big piece of plastic".

    Seth 11 years ago   Reply

    • LOL, this seems very spot-on, Seth.

      Old Goat 10 years ago   Reply

      • That's why I think Apple's days are numbered. There is no other way than the Apple way. It appeals to people who want to be told how to do things, rather than to have options. And that's only a small cadre of people, but those people are really, really enthusiastic about being bossed around. It's the same arrogance that killed the Mac as the 90s came to an end... And unfortunately, Jobs isn't going to come back again and save Apples ass again. If he does, that's a pretty clear sign of something very different... LOL.

        Old Goat 10 years ago   Reply

  • my poor monitor has nearly been thrown out the window every day I have to use xcode. as soon as i can stop using an osx dev environment im going to copy all the xcode files to a dvd then crush it into pieces, melt it down, turn it into a tiny little, nice looking statue, just so i can smash it with a hammer.

    11 years ago   Reply

  • XCode was and is the worse IDE for development. You might want to try JetBrains AppCode. I switched it as primary IDE 4 months ago and haven't looked back.

    Sam 11 years ago   Reply

  • Jeez what are you using Xcode on? I never have had stall issues like that. As for long build times that mainly has to do with how good your code is.

    Hayden 11 years ago   Reply

  • Suck it up. There is no competition, so Apple can do what they want. What are you gonna do? Switch to Android? Hahaha!

    AlexZak 11 years ago   Reply

    • I actually LOL'd! ^_^ Android. Hmmm... whatever.

      Matt 10 years ago   Reply

      • Android FTW!!!!! <3 <3

        the boss 10 years ago   Reply

  • Being a Visual Studio addicted .NET freak i absolutely agree. I experienced the most terrible moments of solitude and fear in front of XCode. That's why i went for MonoTouch and MonoDevelop on iOS. www.tabulatouch.eu

    Stefano Baraldi 11 years ago   Reply

  • @V, what is that about "disable the git plugin by replacing it with the subversion plugin and doing some identifier magic in the plist"? How do you do that? I would love to try it as I don't let Xcode mess with my version control anyway.

    11 years ago   Reply

  • If someone has an answer to issue #2 please do share. It's annoying that the filesystem is a jumbled mess of files even when your Xcode files are nicely organized. I've seen really clean Xcode repositories on GitHub, so I'm confident it's possible.

    Dozier Hudson 11 years ago   Reply

  • I'm another one to completely hate XCode. Crashes all the time, and It's just not a productive environment to work. Interface builder might be ok if you're doing osx development, but for UIKit it makes no sense: the framework is so simple, it's faster to write code instead, and you get a better end result. AppCode is an awesome editor, I use it all day long, every day. Has its bugs, but they're very proactive: you fill a bug and you get a confirmation that it's being fixed for the next release in 1-2 days max. Very un-apple like.

    escoz 11 years ago   Reply

  • Numbers 1 and 2 have not been issues for me. 3 and 4 used to be horrible (especially having to reboot--WHY?), but with with the latest Lion and XCode updates the problem has gone away for me. I still don't get why connecting to the emulator is a slow as it is. It should be instantaneous, but usually takes at least 5 seconds.

    James 11 years ago   Reply

  • I changed the app identifier whenever it goes to that pesky zombie mode that totally kill the simulator. Rather than restarting my mac. To date I still couldn't find any better way.

    Fred 11 years ago   Reply

  • I suspect there is something seriously broken in your installation. I've used XCode extensively for years and I don't remember it crashing ever. I have also never seen it fail to connect to the emulator although I must've run it thousands and thousands of times.

    11 years ago   Reply

    • +1 XCode has never crashed on me and it's way faster than Eclipse and JetBrains products.

      enotionz 11 years ago   Reply

    • Actually there is something seriously right about your installation! I have Xcode crash on me regularly on several different installations.

      CrocMak 11 years ago   Reply

      • Don't worry it does crash, often, and just feels so slow. Also love how refactoring fails, how you can't cancel build settings changes, how settings are shared in various places/files. Also, why eclipse can add imports automatically and not xcode ? Why don't I have any error stacks on many crashes ? However still have to admit v4.3.x way better than early v4's

        Laurent 11 years ago   Reply

  • Have you looked at AppCode (http://www.jetbrains.com/objc/)? It's basically IntelliJ (by JetBrains as well) for Objective C. Well worth a look

    James Hollingworth 11 years ago   Reply

  • It helps a lot if you disable the git plugin by replacing it with the subversion plugin and doing some identifier magic in the plist. It will fail to load the plugin; which seems to make the crashes and freezes go away.

    V 11 years ago   Reply

    • How do you do that???

      David Casseres 11 years ago   Reply

  • XCode doesn't crash on me, and it's way faster than Eclipse for editing code files on a Mac. But it's far from perfection (Visual Studio) IMHO. On your issue #6, you can drag and drop the UI element to the view controller to generate automatically the outlet code. And you don't need to make every single outlet in your code a "property", so you don't always need the synthesizer. Thanks for sharing though!

    Pablo 11 years ago   Reply

  • Xcode is awful. We should all be filing a gazillion bugs at bugreport.apple.com. (I have been given reason to believe (by and engineer at WWDC) that the more duplicate bug reports received for a given gripe, the more likely they are to fix that particular gripe.) You've only touched the surface of the things that suck about Xcode here.

    Foo 11 years ago   Reply

  • It crashes for me when I do git merge and resolve conflicts.

    Fotkin 11 years ago   Reply

  • You didn't mention all the other good stuff: Builds that stalls forever; Sometimes a build will not complete for some reason for a long time. You cannot cancel or start a new build until the old one is completed, so you'll be forced to kill xcode or wait 15 minutes until the build eventually completes. Very annoying bug. My Archive-window users 200% CPU whenever open. Great stuff... Why? Deleting/renaming files from the project sometimes (often) crashes Xcode. Searching the documentation is slower than Xcode 3 (or even Google), and implemented such that if you stop typing for a short moment to think, the search starts and you have to wait for the search to finish before you can continue typing (or fix that little typo you made). Indexing takes up a looooooot of CPU and doesn't seem to work well/often. No way to completely disable it. Typing in some files is like walking in deep mud. The editor cannot keep up with you at all. I have been down to 2 characters per second. Code-signing is always a lot of fun and the error messages (if any) are extremely unhelpful. It has gotten a lot better over the years, but it was terrible to begin with and it still stinks. Xcode is one of the Apple products that has gotten worse with every single update. Xcode 3.x were sort of OK in the end, but they took care of that by forcing us all to use 4.x.

    xcodesucker 11 years ago   Reply

    • YUP. After I posted this, I started thinking about how my CPU time is so often spiked by XCode, usually due to searching or indexing. It is horrendous and causes me to restart XCode. Thanks for sharing.

      par 11 years ago   Reply

  • It's all because Xcode development has been outsourced to India. Also why don't you like the one giant flat file? Flat file = text processing. I can grep/sed/awk my project file. how cool is that?

    11 years ago   Reply

    • "It's all because Xcode development has been outsourced to India."…not true. Apple doesn't have a dev center in India and they don't outsource product development either.

      Rob 9 years ago   Reply

      • Ironically, some of the VS development happens out of India.

        Necromancer 8 years ago   Reply

  • About #6 - Have you tried using the drag-drop-into-viewController for you IBOutlets/IBActions? It does all of the boiler plate for you. This comment does imply you intend to get better instead of just having something to bitch about. Cheers!

    #6 11 years ago   Reply

    • Thanks a lot. I will check that out today.

      par 11 years ago   Reply