I don't really think the author can complain about iOS 4 / 5 compatibility issues as being an 'XCode issue'. It's an iOS issue. iOS 5 gives you some new features. You don't have to use them. You don't have to use storyboards. It sounds as if he wants every new feature to be back-ported to previous iOS versions.

If you don't like conditionally coding around deprecated methods, just support new iOS versions. If you want to support older version, you have to live with it. That's not an iOS issue: Android is in the same boat. So, in fact, are most operating systems. New versions bring you new features. It's up to you to decide whether the trade-off of being visible only to users running the latest version is worth it.

I could get behind a lot of the points being made, but that one just came off as a bit of a whine. It reads as if the author hasn't really looked at other platforms: the grass really isn't much greener. XCode as an IDE can be very frustrating. I agree it's very buggy. But complaining about the speed of the iOS simulator? Has the author even used the Android Emulator? If he reckons the iOS simulator has 'tremendous lag' then I have no idea what words could be used to describe the Android emulator...

Xcode sucks in some ways but I think you're missing a few things.

Version 4.3.0 was the biggest piece of crap and crashed all the time. The current version, 4.3.2, is stable. I've not had a single crash since it hit. And I use it 10+ hours a day.

The project file stuff isn't so bad -- don't edit the file yourself and drag stuff in. Need to move something in the project but want to keep the layout the same as on disk? Remove it from the project, move it on disk, then add it to the project again. Does it suck for version control? Hell yes it does. It's terrible in that regard.

No simulator related issues here but I've seen it fail to launch on the device b/c of some stuck process. A reboot usually fixes this but it's very rare on 4.3.2. Major pain when it happens, though.

Storyboards are an iOS 4 only feature. ARC works on iOS 4. And iOS adoption rate is very good relative to other mobile OSes. Not sure what your beef is. Backward compatibility is pretty much always ugly. Especially if you use static libs and want to go back to iOS 4.0. But you really should weigh the cost of supporting OS versions that old against your development costs and your user base. You may not need to, based on your situation.

You're making IBOutlets way too hard on yourself. Use the two up view with IB on the left and your header on the right. Ctrl + drag from your control to your header and let go. Give the outlet a name and Xcode declares the property, synthesizes it, and sets it to nil in viewDidUnload. You can do the same thing for events (right click the control and drag from the event in the context menu to your header).

Eclipse is fine but it's hardly the best IDE. Its refactoring features are nothing short of amazing but it's dog slow on modern hardware. All of its preference/settings dialogs are convoluted at best. Finding things you want to change is usually a matter of digging through trees. No fun.

In my experience XCode 4.x has consistently failed miserably, even a fresh install of the latest 4.3.2.

In my fairly large project, I've had:

- Indexing taking hours, then not finding anything

- XCode using up 300% CPU for no apparent reason

- Build process randomly decides not to copy new files over to the device or simulator

- Simulator and device connections randomly decide to break

- Build process fails, reason why not stated in build results

- Project sometimes opens with no toolbar, multiple windows

- Fatal crashes

If Apple got around to fixing these issues it'd be a pretty good IDE.

No mention of the fact that the debugger's inspection abilities are awful (when they do anything at all)?

XCode is awful. XCode 3 rarely crashed on me, but the latest version crash a few times an hour on me.

Of course, all of my experiences with Apple software leave me unimpressed anyway.

Now I see I'm not alone. I feel a little better because of that.

I could rant and rave just as much as the OP. I'll save everyone from that with one exception. I find myself dreading Xcode upgrades because of some new thing Apple will break.

For example, I remember working somewhat contentedly in whatever version supported iOS 4 only. Then iOS 5 came out with Xcode 4.1 (?) and then Xcode stopped printing the stack trace on a crash!

I find it appalling that they even shipped a version with that issue. They MUST have known about it. I don't even know if it's fixed; I found a workaround and stuck with it.

XCode 4 is really a terrible, terrible IDE. The $99 I spent on an AppCode license was the best $99 I've spent in a long time. Now when Interface Builder crashes, as it still often does even in 4.3.2, I just smile. When I occasionally go back to do a quick edit in XCode I'm amazed that I put up with such a limited and frustrating tool for so long.

Beyond bugs and crashes, it seems to me that Xcode sucks because it's primarily built for a rather archaic language (Obj-C), thus the value added by the IDE is "scrappy" rather than uniform and natural.

Environments that are rich with implicit metadata have synergy with IDEs. Environments full of repetition, gnarly API headers, #ifdefs and #defines don't.

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In other words, Xcode is technologically fighting an uphill battle. Fortunately people are still skilled enough to produce great OS X and iOS apps with it.

My biggest issue is merging the project.pbxproj file every time someone on my team commits. Merging never works and we have to manually edit the XML.

It's an awful feeling to always be afraid to change anything in the project outside of the source code. Did you both add a new file? Too bad; conflict!

Regarding the "control drag to set an IBOutlet" stuff, I'll admit that it took me a while to understand what that was even doing. I'd be interested if anyone has any alternative ideas on how to do this - how do you specify the object on which the outlet should be created (e.g. the file's owner, the view controller, any other object in the nib, etc)?

> 2. It manages the project files and their hierarchy using a […] flat file (pbxproj). […]

The disparity of what the Finder sees vs what is set up in Xcode is the least of the problems with this setup. Have you ever tried to merge an Xcode project file? I've gotten to the point where I can open it in TextMate and do the merge manually pretty quickly. It's just stupid that I have to resort to 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.

I remember in MS Visual J++ you could double click on a UI element and it would create the event signature in the code behind class. I always likes that feature because I felt it was the best way to represent the link between the action and the code. Another good one was in the days of VRML. SGI had a development environment called CosmoWorlds and VRML had the concept of routes, in the hierarchy of the scene you could click on an object and add a scripted behavior, in which certain function signatures became the API, these function signatures would form little inward and outward triangles in the UI which would could then route via the UI from one behavior to the next. Anyway my point was, I agree with the whole linking of the UI in xCode it is not intuitive, there are far better metaphors out there.

I am also in agreement with the file system issues, adding files in the wrong way can be a mess to clean up, especially if the project is under source control. xCode in a lot of ways feels like it is constrained by the age of the IDE dating back to the NeXT era.

The impression I get is that Apple doesn't really care about developers (and I say this as someone who's been doing Cocoa/Obj-C development for ~10 years). Really, there's no excuse for a company that awash in cash to ship shoddy tools.

Can't speak for 2,3 and 4, as I'm doing OS X dev and it's been some time since I've done iOS. I agree with 1,2 and 6 wholeheartedly.

I'm working with AppKit. I would give a limb to have it be half as nice as the first release of UIKit.

Appkit with XCode 4 is the worst software development toolset I've ever had the pain of working with. I'd rather be using VB or Gtk. :(

> Connecting UI elements to their IBOutlet is the most annoying thing I have ever done in an IDE. <

I would have chosen this on the top of the list!

  5) IOS4 vs IOS5. Come on Apple, I am begging you to not
  turn IOS into the next Internet Explorer.

I really can't fault Apple for this approach.

BTW, we rely on Flurry data to judge what the economic cost of choosing a new iOS target.

I spend 8 hours a day in Xcode and absolutely love it. It has its rough edges - which you eventually learn how to circumvent - but most of these complaints seem to be misunderstanding more than issues with the IDE.

Reminds me of when I had to use Visual Studio for an extended period of time. I started off hating it, then eventually figured out how it wanted to play, and ended up liking it.

I wonder if authors of these types of articles come back to them a year later and think, "Gee, I sound foolish." Because that's how they sound to me now.

#6 is moot, viewController does that for you.

A lot of the other complaints could be specific to just how bad the actual code of the project actually is. I use XCode everyday and I only have to force quit it every few times a week, but that's because of shitty code, not the actual tool itself.

Also, nowhere in the article do you say what version of XCode you're running. As with any software, some versions are better than others, and they even fix some bugs too!

And still no IB plugins in Xcode4 after everyone became reliant on them in Xcode3 (i.e. anyone using BWToolkit which it seems is everyone building a Mac app).

I can understand that they left it out of the initial developer previews and even the first release. But come on, it's been years now.

That's why I just use VI. Ever since Nibs became XML there's no reason to ever use XCode anymore.

Seriously though.. XCode does suck. It's a miracle anyone has been able to write an iOS app, let alone over 500,000.. /sarcasm

#6: 1. Add UI element to your view. 2. Ctrl-drag from element in view to the @interface section of your view controller .h file. This will add @property and will also add @synthesize in .m

I never run into #'s 3,4. With 6, why god why are you doing it the long way? Control+clikc+drag to your header file. It will generate the property, and synthesize it for you automatically.

As an aside, I've never found an IDE that was great. I've found great editors (Submlime2, TextMate, VIM) but never a great IDE.

Microsofts .NET IDE wasn't bad (it's been six years since I've touched a Microsoft technology) so I may not remember the rage like I should (like child birth).

15 years or more behind other similar products in terms of features, XCode 4.3 is the throwback IDE from yesteryear.

XCode 4.3.1 crash on my mac every day, that will drive me crazy. At that time ,I always remember the Xcode 3 era with nostalgia.

  5) IOS4 vs IOS5. Come on Apple, I am begging you to not
  turn IOS into the next Internet Explorer.

It is indeed icky.