Re: Xcode release notes
Re: Xcode release notes
- Subject: Re: Xcode release notes
- From: joshua portway <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 00:03:07 +0100
And there'd only be one obvious way of doing things.
For us (and i would imagine a very large number of other developers), I
have to say that it's absolutely essential that flexibility is one of
the top priorities for an IDE. We have a project with a necessarily
complex build process (it's cross platform, has Java and C++ code
working together, has other code must be generated as part of the build
process, has custom packaging, encryption and signing requirements etc.
etc.). We can't just conform to one idea of "best practice" - our
project needs to build in Visual Studio on Windows, for instance, so if
the IDE imposed it's idea of how to organise a project that was
incompatible with being able to build with Visual Studio then it would
be a big, big problem.
An iCode IDE would be nice to have, but it would be very, very bad if
xCode lost it's build flexibility which is currently (along with it's
nice cocoa support and interface builder integration) it's best
feature.
josh
On 4 Aug 2004, at 23:09, Marko Karppinen wrote:
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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