Re: Xcode release notes
Re: Xcode release notes
- Subject: Re: Xcode release notes
- From: Marko Karppinen <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 01:09:34 +0300
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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