Re: XCode Falls Short - for now
Re: XCode Falls Short - for now
- Subject: Re: XCode Falls Short - for now
- From: Laurence Harris <email@hidden>
- Date: Tue, 31 Oct 2006 22:25:02 -0500
On Oct 31, 2006, at 7:41 PM, Turtle Creek Software wrote:
Since XCode is the only game in town, maybe having different
"skins" or
preset configurations would be an answer?
That's what the General: Layout preference attempts to address.
I'd be quite satisfied if
XCode could look & feel a lot like CW (it's not the app I want to
keep,
but the familiar interface). Someone else might prefer a very
different style. That could even be done quickly-- just allow import
of a set of canned prefs that makes XCode as close as possible to CW,
right now.
Yeah, right. It's not the prefs that are the challenge, it's
designing and writing the code to implement all those different
interfaces. You sound like a user who's never been a programmer and
thinks you can change almost anything by changing two lines of code.
Seemingly simple changes in behavior or interface can require
significant code changes, not to mention time spend designing,
testing, and future maintenance. A lot of people would resist
investing a lot of resources to provide a different interface if it
took away from the development of new, useful features.
Is Apple willing to get developers more involved in the tool-design
process? I'm thinking that the fate of us developers is now more
closely entwined with Apple. But eventually, that situation works
both
ways.
Where have you been? I've lost track of how many times someone has
said "file requests in Radar" and there have even been multiple
encouragements to try Xcode 3 and make suggestions while they can
still make changes. You talk like you haven't been here for 98% of
this thread.
It's also a bottom-line decision for many of us. My company has
limited time/money resources, and better tools will save us programmer
time/money (and I think $100K/yr $50/hr is a good rule of thumb COST
for a US programmer-- it's not just wages, but also taxes, insurance,
supervision, and subtracting non-programming time).
Right now the cost to modernize our Mac software looks like it will be
more than we'll make back in an acceptible time frame. But tools that
are better for us will shift that equation.
We know all this. Apple knows all this. I am quite sure the tools
team is working long and hard to provide the best tools they can.
Apple can only do so much to affect the cost of modernizing your
software. The best way for your company to minimize the cost of
modernizing your software (and you don't really indicate what that
would require) is to ensure they have the most capable programmers
for that $100K they're paying. If they're paying someone $100K/year
to sit around and lament the death of CW and isn't able to be
productive in Xcode, they aren't getting lot of bang for their buck,
are they? ;-) I'll bet that for $100K they could hire lots of
talented Mac OS X programmers who are just whizzes with Xcode. :-)
Larry
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