XCode usable?
XCode usable?
- Subject: XCode usable?
- From: Dix Lorenz <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 4 Nov 2003 13:19:05 +0100
Hi,
so far I don't see the big improvement over PB. I've been using (trying
to use) it for a week now, hoping it would grow on me, but it's getting
worse every day.
The 2 biggies in XCode I was looking for was distributed compiling and
Code Sense.
Distributed compiling sometimes works, then it's awesome. Mostly it
doesn't and I have no clue why. It seems to hate being stopped and
machines that go to sleep, regardless if they are used for compiling at
that moment or not. Right now, if I use DC, it spawns 6 compiles
(correct: 3 machines with dual procs available), but the other machines
are idle and my machine is compiling only 1 file. I have no idea how to
fix that other than restarting machines and don't even know if I should
restart my machine or the others. So I've switched it off until the
next release.
CodeSense is better, but from time to time it inserts invisible text in
my code, making compiles fail.
As for the rest of the changes from PB... A few things I positively
hate, some I am not so sure about.
I definitely hate that all the compiler flags etc. have gone into an
inspector/Info Panel.
For example I can't have the settings for my build styles next to each
other to see if I forgot a flag somewhere. It's a lot of switching back
and forth.
Search Paths used to be a nice table, where you could actually see more
than just a few characters of the first path, now it's a one-line
textfield. I hated it in MSVC and used to point to Mac: Neither CW nor
PB would ever dare use such an unusable UI. Of course it's a lot easier
to program, but if you already had the code, why trash it?
It used to be very easy to add a flag in a build-style, just click on
the "=" and it turns to "+=". Maybe not obvious, but once you knew
about it, very easy, efficient and crystal-clear. Now it needs text
that says I have to use "$(value)". I don't see the progress. Plus, I
assume it is supposed to be (for example) "$(OTHER_CFLAGS)" and it not
really obvious, what I should put there for "Other linker flags". Just
an example, I don't need it right now.
At some places I am just stumped, where a setting comes from. Maybe
that's because I am not yet used to it, maybe because it is still in
flux, but I found it very nice in PB to just go to Expert View and see
and edit all the settings in a pretty raw format. Especially when it
does some things behind my back which I don't want but can't find a way
to reverse. I have one target called "libdlclmmcl", which should build
a lib called "libdlclmmcl.a". I haven't changed anything yet, but the
lib is called "liblibdlclmmcl.a" and I can't find why it would do that.
I certainly didn't tell it to and there is no setting I can see.
In PB it was reasonable to use the project-window for just the tree and
not having an editor right next to it, basically working as you would
in CW. In XCode it isn't: I know I can collapse the editor-part, but
when I have compile-errors, I have to doubleclick the file in the
projectwindow, scroll until I find a small red "x" and hover with the
mouse over it to see the tooltip. Or use the buildwindow, but the
editor there is gone, for no reason I can think of.
I've also stumbled about most of the bugs others saw, had one project
corrupted... It is the buggiest release of anything I've yet seen from
Apple. Luckily the bugs usually don't destroy data, but working with
XCode is more of a fight than it should be.
So far I'll have to say I am pretty disappointed. Usability is way down
from PB and I can't attribute that only to me being used to PB or CW.
It tries to force me into a direction I don't like. The iTunes-metaphor
is not good for everything and I'd say an IDE is one of the last places
where it's the best solution.
I guess the bugs will sort themselves out and I will give Apple the
benefit of the doubt: PB was not to be ported to Panther, so XCode had
to be released with Panther and you can't delay Panther for developer
tools that may not be perfect, but usable. So I assume Apple would have
liked to refine XCode a bit more before releasing, but couldn't. But
the UI (especially the settings for targets and build styles) will
probably stay and I don't look forward to using that for the next few
years. Maybe somebody could tell me why they changed a system that was
IMHO pretty darn good; usable for novices and usable for experts...
Thanks for reading my rant, I just had to get it off my chest.
Dix
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