It's quite an interesting position: you prefer the use of Intel's compiler over a 3rd party one, yet you don't prefer the use of the OS maker's IDE over a 3rd party one. My guess is that your position is pro-business motivated since both gcc and Xcode are free tools which have cut into the markets of commercial tools. Whereas I prefer tools based on a balance between quality and longevity (regardless of being free or commercial).
I'd personally avoid Intel's compiler unless I needed some particular feature only it had. Just in case Apple chooses to switch to a different CPU at some point. gcc supports so many CPUs that I see it being the compiler with the most longevity at this point.
No, I don't care where it comes from.
But GCC has had plenty of complaints too. Intels compilers are simply better suited to their chips' performance than GCC is.
I like XCode, I just think it lacks too much. I'm not going to get into details, because, as I've said, I don't program much these days, so I don't have as much hands on with it as I could have.
But from reading what others have said over time, and my own little experience with it, the only conclusion i can come to, is that it needs a lot of work.
It's free. And it came with your computer. If you want to find out more, head over to http://developer.apple.com/products/online.html and sign up for a free developer membership - this gets you access to all the online docs, sample code, etc. What you have on your installer DVDs is what was current when your machine shipped, but the online site is where you get upgrades and more current information.
Xcode 3.0 will ship with 10.5, and it promises to be a huge jump.
Oh yas.
Actually, I'm a registered developer now - got it at the same time as I registered for macworld.
But so far X-Code seems powerful but not entirely user friendly...
i hope they do update .mac, the title of the article refers to internet content as a focus, could mean google.
Steve did say in his D5 interview that Apple are working on bringing .mac up to scratch. But as far as internet content goes, I think WWDC will be encouraging developers to build more advanced online applications, or applications that make use of the web more effectivly. Don't forget WWDC is a week long, a lot of people confuse WWDC with just the opening keynote.
You guys aren't the only ones. Adobe's engineers said the same thing.
XCode has been criticized as being difficult, and incomplete.
I know that there are defenders of it that will rise up and flame me for saying it, but it's true. Apple's OS X tools are simply not as developed as those for Windows.
I'm one of the few developers who uses/develops with an almost identical codebase on Mac, Windows, and Linux, (very large -- at least a few thousand files) and I can honestly say that Visual Studio .NET 2003 (haven't upgraded to 2005 yet) is just as incomprehensible (and even moreso in a number of ways).
I mean, people talk about the confusing/hidden settings in XCode, try changing the settings in Visual Studio. First you have the multitude of global settings in Tools->Options... menu (comparible to the Xcode->Preferences... menu, but not half as nice looking or organized). Then you have another multitude of settings when you right-click your solution and select Properties (about the same as XCode when you right-click on a project and select Get Info).
Also, for those who don't know about it: in XCode, switch to the All-in-one view in the preferences. It makes a world of difference.
In Visual Studio, it seems to be a crapshoot whether the drop-down box with the list of functions in your class will actually work or not. Ditto for code-completion. Both of these functions work perfectly for me in XCode all the time (the class function dropdown box is especially nice since you can put #pragma mark in your code and have the comments show up as a way to organize the functions).
One other thing I like better in XCode is when you have a lot of files open. Using the drop-down box with the list of files is a much better way to navigate than using the tabs at the top in Visual Studio (where your tab may be off the screen and so you have to scroll over to it).
And I much prefer Interface Builder to Visual Studio's Resource Editor/GUI builder (putting guidelines in by hand -- yuck).
About the only thing in Visual Studio I prefer is the debugger. XCode sometimes doesn't even give you a stack trace (I often have to re-run the program to get the stack trace). And sometimes the line of code it's stopped on doesn't match up with anything (I've had it stop at a blank line before -- wtf is that?). Visual Studio's debugger always works well (even going down into the assembly code when there's no source for a particular function).
Project settings will always be complicated due to the vast number of things you need control over, there's no way around that. Every IDE I've ever used is complicated when it comes to them (takes time to learn). Really, XCode isn't a bad IDE overall. I mainly find that it's whatever IDE developers spend the most time in which they tend to prefer (myself included).
I'm one of the few developers who uses/develops with an almost identical codebase on Mac, Windows, and Linux, (very large -- at least a few thousand files) and I can honestly say that Visual Studio .NET 2003 (haven't upgraded to 2005 yet) is just as incomprehensible (and even moreso in a number of ways).
I mean, people talk about the confusing/hidden settings in XCode, try changing the settings in Visual Studio. First you have the multitude of global settings in Tools->Options... menu (comparible to the Xcode->Preferences... menu, but not half as nice looking or organized). Then you have another multitude of settings when you right-click your solution and select Properties (about the same as XCode when you right-click on a project and select Get Info).
Also, for those who don't know about it: in XCode, switch to the All-in-one view in the preferences. It makes a world of difference.
In Visual Studio, it seems to be a crapshoot whether the drop-down box with the list of functions in your class will actually work or not. Ditto for code-completion. Both of these functions work perfectly for me in XCode all the time (the class function dropdown box is especially nice since you can put #pragma mark in your code and have the comments show up as a way to organize the functions).
One other thing I like better in XCode is when you have a lot of files open. Using the drop-down box with the list of files is a much better way to navigate than using the tabs at the top in Visual Studio (where your tab may be off the screen and so you have to scroll over to it).
And I much prefer Interface Builder to Visual Studio's Resource Editor/GUI builder (putting guidelines in by hand -- yuck).
About the only thing in Visual Studio I prefer is the debugger. XCode sometimes doesn't even give you a stack trace (I often have to re-run the program to get the stack trace). And sometimes the line of code it's stopped on doesn't match up with anything (I've had it stop at a blank line before -- wtf is that?). Visual Studio's debugger always works well (even going down into the assembly code when there's no source for a particular function).
Project settings will always be complicated due to the vast number of things you need control over, there's no way around that. Every IDE I've ever used is complicated when it comes to them (takes time to learn). Really, XCode isn't a bad IDE overall. I mainly find that it's whatever IDE developers spend the most time in which they tend to prefer (myself included).
The difference is that you don't HAVE to develop in Visual Studio.
The difference is that you don't HAVE to develop in Visual Studio.
No, but I'm sure that it's the similar to Mac in the sense that, whenever MS develops a new technology (eg. C# or some of the new Aero UI enhancements), support in you're 3rd party IDE is going to lag (or possibly never come depending on how specialized the audience is).
In my experience, I've found that it's always better in the long run to go with the tools provided by the company which created the OS (Linux aside of course). Though I can't speak for Mac OS prior to X. I've heard that CodeWarrior was the way to go, which seems to be where all the animosity towards XCode stems from for various reasons (not all technical).
No, but I'm sure that it's the similar to Mac in the sense that, whenever MS develops a new technology (eg. C# or some of the new Aero UI enhancements), support in you're 3rd party IDE is going to lag (or possibly never come depending on how specialized the audience is).
In my experience, I've found that it's always better in the long run to go with the tools provided by the company which created the OS (Linux aside of course). Though I can't speak for Mac OS prior to X. I've heard that CodeWarrior was the way to go, which seems to be where all the animosity towards XCode stems from for various reasons (not all technical).
That's personal preference.
Codewarrior was very robust. XCode is still working on it.
That's speaking from having used 5 different IDEs and 5 different programming languages with a multitude of development frameworks/libraries (some bleeding-edge, some well-estabilished) on the same project over the past 10 years. Technology changes, company directions change, requirements change. If your tools can't keep up with your needs, it's a real pain to keep switching.
I only use 3rd party IDEs when developing in OS-independent programming languages/platforms like Java, Python, etc. Because in those cases, there's no incentive for the OS makers to provide good support (and from my experience, they don't).
Quote:
Codewarrior was very robust. XCode is still working on it.
I'd have agreed with you up until about a year ago. But now I'd say that XCode is as good as any other IDE I've used. Not that there still isn't room for improvement, but that's true for any IDE.
That's speaking from having used 5 different IDEs and 5 different programming languages with a multitude of development frameworks/libraries (some bleeding-edge, some well-estabilished) on the same project over the past 10 years. Technology changes, company directions change, requirements change. If your tools can't keep up with your needs, it's a real pain to keep switching.
I only use 3rd party IDEs when developing in OS-independent programming languages/platforms like Java, Python, etc. Because in those cases, there's no incentive for the OS makers to provide good support (and from my experience, they don't).
I'd have agreed with you up until about a year ago. But now I'd say that XCode is as good as any other IDE I've used. Not that there still isn't room for improvement, but that's true for any IDE.
As I've said elsewhere, I haven't done any serious programming in years, but from what I've seen of it, it has a way to go to get to where other programming tools were. With all of the complaints from the big developers, I would have to say that something is amiss.
As I've said elsewhere, I haven't done any serious programming in years, but from what I've seen of it, it has a way to go to get to where other programming tools were. With all of the complaints from the big developers, I would have to say that something is amiss.
I think it's mainly the Adobe developers who are whining. And it's likely because of a couple reasons:
1) They've been developing in the same environment for about 15 years now and I can only imagine how much leverage they had with Metrowerks to get it customized in every way they needed. I'm sure Apple worked with them a lot as well, but Apple is a much bigger company and has other priorities.
While I agree that Xcode is likely much less mature than Codewarrior was/is (haven't used it, so I can't say), and it was a bit flakey until 2.1 or so, the underlying tools it uses (gcc and gdb) are much more mature and powerful if you take the time to learn them and find out about all the supporting tools developed around them over the years by UNIX developers. So it's not like there weren't ways to work around Xcode's limitations if you needed to until it came of age (which I consider it has).
2) The project managers had a hard time trying to convince management why they need to invest a big chunk of money in something which they don't understand, and which end-users won't readily fork over extra money for (since they don't understand it either). So this added to Adobe developers' stress load -- hence the need to vent frustrations on Xcode.
As I said before, it's a pain to switch development environments. I see (and hear) the developers who've worked on one platform for the majority of their career go through pain when learning a new platform all the time.
I think it's mainly the Adobe developers who are whining. And it's likely because of two reasons:
1) They've been developing in the same environment for about 15 years now and I can only imagine how much leverage they had with Metrowerks to get it customized in every way they needed. I'm sure Apple worked with them a lot as well, but Apple is a much bigger company and has other priorities.
While I agree that Xcode is likely much less mature than Codewarrior was/is (haven't used it, so I can't say), and it was a bit flakey until 2.1 or so, the underlying tools it uses (gcc and gdb) are much more mature and powerful if you take the time to learn them and find out about all the supporting tools developed around them over the years by UNIX developers. So it's not like there weren't ways to work around Xcode's limitations if you needed to until it came of age (which I consider it has).
2) The project managers had a hard time trying to convince management why they need to invest a big chunk of money in something which they don't understand, and which end-users won't readily fork over extra money for (since they don't understand it either). So this added to Adobe developers' stress load -- hence the need to vent frustrations on Xcode.
I rhink it was more than just their need to vent. And I would like to see much more use of Intel's compilers.
Comments
Developers, developers, developers!
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IIRC, 3.0 is the first ground-up rewrite since it was at NeXT.
Let's hope it's a major improvement then.
It's quite an interesting position: you prefer the use of Intel's compiler over a 3rd party one, yet you don't prefer the use of the OS maker's IDE over a 3rd party one. My guess is that your position is pro-business motivated since both gcc and Xcode are free tools which have cut into the markets of commercial tools. Whereas I prefer tools based on a balance between quality and longevity (regardless of being free or commercial).
I'd personally avoid Intel's compiler unless I needed some particular feature only it had. Just in case Apple chooses to switch to a different CPU at some point. gcc supports so many CPUs that I see it being the compiler with the most longevity at this point.
No, I don't care where it comes from.
But GCC has had plenty of complaints too. Intels compilers are simply better suited to their chips' performance than GCC is.
I like XCode, I just think it lacks too much. I'm not going to get into details, because, as I've said, I don't program much these days, so I don't have as much hands on with it as I could have.
But from reading what others have said over time, and my own little experience with it, the only conclusion i can come to, is that it needs a lot of work.
If you like it, that's great.
Xcode.
It's free. And it came with your computer. If you want to find out more, head over to http://developer.apple.com/products/online.html and sign up for a free developer membership - this gets you access to all the online docs, sample code, etc. What you have on your installer DVDs is what was current when your machine shipped, but the online site is where you get upgrades and more current information.
Xcode 3.0 will ship with 10.5, and it promises to be a huge jump.
Oh yas.
Actually, I'm a registered developer now - got it at the same time as I registered for macworld.
But so far X-Code seems powerful but not entirely user friendly...
Michael
This never gets old. Truly as funny as the day the sweaty monkey boy video hit the internet.
Poor Balmer. He's become an internet joke.
He's always been a joke. Poor fella was bald before Bill Gates grew hair on his down belows.
i hope they do update .mac, the title of the article refers to internet content as a focus, could mean google.
Steve did say in his D5 interview that Apple are working on bringing .mac up to scratch. But as far as internet content goes, I think WWDC will be encouraging developers to build more advanced online applications, or applications that make use of the web more effectivly. Don't forget WWDC is a week long, a lot of people confuse WWDC with just the opening keynote.
Hence their $100+ billion valuation and $12.5+ billion in cash.
Actually, when they focused on the basics they were pretty much broke. That money came from the more marketable iBook/Macbook and the iPod.
Developers, developers, developers!
Hey Steve - you do keep tabs on the Mac!
Actually, when they focused on the basics they were pretty much broke. That money came from the more marketable iBook/Macbook and the iPod.
Cash has never really been Apple's problem
Cash on Hand
Year Millions
2006 $10,110
2005 $8,261
2004 $5,464
2003 $4,566
2002 $4,337
2001 $4,336
2000 $4,027
1999 $3,226
1998 $2,300
1997 $1,459
1996 $1,745
1995 $952
1994 $1,258
1993 $892
1992 $1,435
1991 $893
1990 $997
You guys aren't the only ones. Adobe's engineers said the same thing.
XCode has been criticized as being difficult, and incomplete.
I know that there are defenders of it that will rise up and flame me for saying it, but it's true. Apple's OS X tools are simply not as developed as those for Windows.
I'm one of the few developers who uses/develops with an almost identical codebase on Mac, Windows, and Linux, (very large -- at least a few thousand files) and I can honestly say that Visual Studio .NET 2003 (haven't upgraded to 2005 yet) is just as incomprehensible (and even moreso in a number of ways).
I mean, people talk about the confusing/hidden settings in XCode, try changing the settings in Visual Studio. First you have the multitude of global settings in Tools->Options... menu (comparible to the Xcode->Preferences... menu, but not half as nice looking or organized). Then you have another multitude of settings when you right-click your solution and select Properties (about the same as XCode when you right-click on a project and select Get Info).
Also, for those who don't know about it: in XCode, switch to the All-in-one view in the preferences. It makes a world of difference.
In Visual Studio, it seems to be a crapshoot whether the drop-down box with the list of functions in your class will actually work or not. Ditto for code-completion. Both of these functions work perfectly for me in XCode all the time (the class function dropdown box is especially nice since you can put #pragma mark in your code and have the comments show up as a way to organize the functions).
One other thing I like better in XCode is when you have a lot of files open. Using the drop-down box with the list of files is a much better way to navigate than using the tabs at the top in Visual Studio (where your tab may be off the screen and so you have to scroll over to it).
And I much prefer Interface Builder to Visual Studio's Resource Editor/GUI builder (putting guidelines in by hand -- yuck).
About the only thing in Visual Studio I prefer is the debugger. XCode sometimes doesn't even give you a stack trace (I often have to re-run the program to get the stack trace). And sometimes the line of code it's stopped on doesn't match up with anything (I've had it stop at a blank line before -- wtf is that?). Visual Studio's debugger always works well (even going down into the assembly code when there's no source for a particular function).
Project settings will always be complicated due to the vast number of things you need control over, there's no way around that. Every IDE I've ever used is complicated when it comes to them (takes time to learn). Really, XCode isn't a bad IDE overall. I mainly find that it's whatever IDE developers spend the most time in which they tend to prefer (myself included).
I'm one of the few developers who uses/develops with an almost identical codebase on Mac, Windows, and Linux, (very large -- at least a few thousand files) and I can honestly say that Visual Studio .NET 2003 (haven't upgraded to 2005 yet) is just as incomprehensible (and even moreso in a number of ways).
I mean, people talk about the confusing/hidden settings in XCode, try changing the settings in Visual Studio. First you have the multitude of global settings in Tools->Options... menu (comparible to the Xcode->Preferences... menu, but not half as nice looking or organized). Then you have another multitude of settings when you right-click your solution and select Properties (about the same as XCode when you right-click on a project and select Get Info).
Also, for those who don't know about it: in XCode, switch to the All-in-one view in the preferences. It makes a world of difference.
In Visual Studio, it seems to be a crapshoot whether the drop-down box with the list of functions in your class will actually work or not. Ditto for code-completion. Both of these functions work perfectly for me in XCode all the time (the class function dropdown box is especially nice since you can put #pragma mark in your code and have the comments show up as a way to organize the functions).
One other thing I like better in XCode is when you have a lot of files open. Using the drop-down box with the list of files is a much better way to navigate than using the tabs at the top in Visual Studio (where your tab may be off the screen and so you have to scroll over to it).
And I much prefer Interface Builder to Visual Studio's Resource Editor/GUI builder (putting guidelines in by hand -- yuck).
About the only thing in Visual Studio I prefer is the debugger. XCode sometimes doesn't even give you a stack trace (I often have to re-run the program to get the stack trace). And sometimes the line of code it's stopped on doesn't match up with anything (I've had it stop at a blank line before -- wtf is that?). Visual Studio's debugger always works well (even going down into the assembly code when there's no source for a particular function).
Project settings will always be complicated due to the vast number of things you need control over, there's no way around that. Every IDE I've ever used is complicated when it comes to them (takes time to learn). Really, XCode isn't a bad IDE overall. I mainly find that it's whatever IDE developers spend the most time in which they tend to prefer (myself included).
The difference is that you don't HAVE to develop in Visual Studio.
The difference is that you don't HAVE to develop in Visual Studio.
No, but I'm sure that it's the similar to Mac in the sense that, whenever MS develops a new technology (eg. C# or some of the new Aero UI enhancements), support in you're 3rd party IDE is going to lag (or possibly never come depending on how specialized the audience is).
In my experience, I've found that it's always better in the long run to go with the tools provided by the company which created the OS (Linux aside of course). Though I can't speak for Mac OS prior to X. I've heard that CodeWarrior was the way to go, which seems to be where all the animosity towards XCode stems from for various reasons (not all technical).
No, but I'm sure that it's the similar to Mac in the sense that, whenever MS develops a new technology (eg. C# or some of the new Aero UI enhancements), support in you're 3rd party IDE is going to lag (or possibly never come depending on how specialized the audience is).
In my experience, I've found that it's always better in the long run to go with the tools provided by the company which created the OS (Linux aside of course). Though I can't speak for Mac OS prior to X. I've heard that CodeWarrior was the way to go, which seems to be where all the animosity towards XCode stems from for various reasons (not all technical).
That's personal preference.
Codewarrior was very robust. XCode is still working on it.
That's personal preference.
That's speaking from having used 5 different IDEs and 5 different programming languages with a multitude of development frameworks/libraries (some bleeding-edge, some well-estabilished) on the same project over the past 10 years. Technology changes, company directions change, requirements change. If your tools can't keep up with your needs, it's a real pain to keep switching.
I only use 3rd party IDEs when developing in OS-independent programming languages/platforms like Java, Python, etc. Because in those cases, there's no incentive for the OS makers to provide good support (and from my experience, they don't).
Codewarrior was very robust. XCode is still working on it.
I'd have agreed with you up until about a year ago. But now I'd say that XCode is as good as any other IDE I've used. Not that there still isn't room for improvement, but that's true for any IDE.
That's speaking from having used 5 different IDEs and 5 different programming languages with a multitude of development frameworks/libraries (some bleeding-edge, some well-estabilished) on the same project over the past 10 years. Technology changes, company directions change, requirements change. If your tools can't keep up with your needs, it's a real pain to keep switching.
I only use 3rd party IDEs when developing in OS-independent programming languages/platforms like Java, Python, etc. Because in those cases, there's no incentive for the OS makers to provide good support (and from my experience, they don't).
I'd have agreed with you up until about a year ago. But now I'd say that XCode is as good as any other IDE I've used. Not that there still isn't room for improvement, but that's true for any IDE.
As I've said elsewhere, I haven't done any serious programming in years, but from what I've seen of it, it has a way to go to get to where other programming tools were. With all of the complaints from the big developers, I would have to say that something is amiss.
As I've said elsewhere, I haven't done any serious programming in years, but from what I've seen of it, it has a way to go to get to where other programming tools were. With all of the complaints from the big developers, I would have to say that something is amiss.
I think it's mainly the Adobe developers who are whining. And it's likely because of a couple reasons:
1) They've been developing in the same environment for about 15 years now and I can only imagine how much leverage they had with Metrowerks to get it customized in every way they needed. I'm sure Apple worked with them a lot as well, but Apple is a much bigger company and has other priorities.
While I agree that Xcode is likely much less mature than Codewarrior was/is (haven't used it, so I can't say), and it was a bit flakey until 2.1 or so, the underlying tools it uses (gcc and gdb) are much more mature and powerful if you take the time to learn them and find out about all the supporting tools developed around them over the years by UNIX developers. So it's not like there weren't ways to work around Xcode's limitations if you needed to until it came of age (which I consider it has).
2) The project managers had a hard time trying to convince management why they need to invest a big chunk of money in something which they don't understand, and which end-users won't readily fork over extra money for (since they don't understand it either). So this added to Adobe developers' stress load -- hence the need to vent frustrations on Xcode.
As I said before, it's a pain to switch development environments. I see (and hear) the developers who've worked on one platform for the majority of their career go through pain when learning a new platform all the time.
I think it's mainly the Adobe developers who are whining. And it's likely because of two reasons:
1) They've been developing in the same environment for about 15 years now and I can only imagine how much leverage they had with Metrowerks to get it customized in every way they needed. I'm sure Apple worked with them a lot as well, but Apple is a much bigger company and has other priorities.
While I agree that Xcode is likely much less mature than Codewarrior was/is (haven't used it, so I can't say), and it was a bit flakey until 2.1 or so, the underlying tools it uses (gcc and gdb) are much more mature and powerful if you take the time to learn them and find out about all the supporting tools developed around them over the years by UNIX developers. So it's not like there weren't ways to work around Xcode's limitations if you needed to until it came of age (which I consider it has).
2) The project managers had a hard time trying to convince management why they need to invest a big chunk of money in something which they don't understand, and which end-users won't readily fork over extra money for (since they don't understand it either). So this added to Adobe developers' stress load -- hence the need to vent frustrations on Xcode.
I rhink it was more than just their need to vent. And I would like to see much more use of Intel's compilers.