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Re: Xcode release notes

Rob Dye wrote:
This little exchange between a relative newcomer (?) to Xcode and the head of developer tools at Apple (I'm not sure about that title, Godfrey) strikes me as indicative of a systemic problem with Xcode: the developers of Xcode do not appear to have a good understanding of the users of Xcode.

Xcode has been designed with minimal migration hassle from IDEs such as CodeWarrior, Project Builder and others in mind. Easy migration is essential for fast adoption, but this pandering to existing usage habits should not be a central goal of UI design.

With each new Xcode version, we get new ways of doing the same thing. There must be dozens of places and methods for editing a file by now. I imagine that these are all based on feature requests, and that fulfilling each one of them has made someone happy. But that comes at the expense of the general usability and learn-ability of Xcode. The IDE has become harder to learn and use since 1.0.

Godfrey DiGiorgi wrote:
Unfortunately, modern IDEs are necessarily extremely complex to offer a wide variety of different ways to use them, which allows them to be tailored for best efficiency on a wide variety of development tasks at many levels of expertise.

I think it's a fundamental mistake to argue that generally accepted UI principles aren't suitable for programming tools. The workflows in many other industries are equally complex and involved, but the software used often has a simpler interface. Sure, Final Cut Pro and Shake have customizable interfaces, but typically they make do without a dozen ways to perform a task. For many things, they might only have one obvious way of getting something done -- something I've always considered a hallmark of good design.

It is too late to bring such focus and clarity into Xcode. It is fine for people who already master it or who have very complex projects. But in my daydreams components from Xcode could be used to build a great, simple IDE with relative ease. I think of this as "iCode": a Cocoa-centric development tool that would enforce best practices for project structure and style. In return, it could easily go much further than Xcode in code sense and documentation integration. And there'd only be one obvious way of doing things.

--Marko
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References: 
 >Xcode release notes (From: David Dunham <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Xcode release notes (From: Godfrey DiGiorgi <email@hidden>)
 >Re: Xcode release notes (From: Rob Dye <email@hidden>)



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