Date: March 9, 2012 1:37:19 PM EST
Subject: Re: a breath of fresh air
Much (not most) of what we've seen in these threads attributes culpable negligence or outright incompetence to the developers, and that just isn't true.
You stating or wishing that it isn't true doesn't mean that you're correct. The proof is in the end product, and the end user experience with it. It is appropriate for other users to remark that in their experience, Xcode is a serviceable tool for making their livings. Given human nature as to what drives people to speak up, that is probably the experience of most users. It is completely legitimate for those people to share what they know.
It's just as likely that there are a contingency of users that don't use the functions that people are having problems with, ignore them and are happy to try to find endless "workarounds", are simply non discriminating, or are ignorant. That's just as likely as the scenario you paint, and it's probably true that those that do not complain belong to one of those contingencies.
Given human nature, to paraphrase you, many people delve into only the most surface level aspects of whatever they need to, to accomplish their goal. I think it's just as likely that the majority of "Xcoders" barely know Obj-C well, let alone have enough experience using Xcode throughout past iterations to be able to reply validly on such matters.
That's not to say that some people aren't crippled by serious problems. But it does weigh against the insinuation that the developers are buffoons.
Not really. See above. Well, maybe the developers aren't buffoons, but someone is. Again, proof is in the quality of the end product, and response of the user base.
The Xcode team labors under goals that are in tension with each other. The deliver-fixes-right-now and the QA-till-no-bugs imperatives are two of them. Further, they must deliver versions that support Apple's new products well in advance of those products' release. That's nonnegotiable. The products come out on a schedule that can't be delayed until the supporting Xcode is bug-free. That means Xcode 4.2 and 4.3 came out with lesser quality than they otherwise might; but if you think the current firestorm is bad, imagine what it would be if there had been no Xcode, bug-free or not, that permitted development for iOS 5.
No one forced Apple to drastically redo Xcode, while breaking function, nor did anyone force them to come up with inane new concepts like file versioning, etc., that are causing problems. Your analysis is faulty.
No one is holding a gun to anyone's head, forcing Apple to release bad software.
Given those constraints, and that the product is orders of magnitude more complex than that of any participant in this discussion,
What? This is where you go totally off task. You've phrased this poorly; literally, you're comparing the complexity of Xcode to the complexity of the participants, as humans? I'm going to assume you mean the software made by participants, and if that's the case, you're totally off the mark, and have no omniscient insight about what kind of software the participants in this conversation take part in or not.
Maybe Xcode boggles your mind, but it's a just an interface for what is largely command line stuff. In fact, this would be a great opportunity for a small company to write a non-crappy IDE; it probably wouldn't take much manpower or time, just a concerted effort and attention to detail. it is not fair to call the Xcode developers negligent or incompetent.
It's fair to call *someone* negligent or incompetent. Anybody who used any prerelease of Xcode knows
This isn't prerelease Xcode we're talking about, it's release software. that the public versions showed a huge degree of care and competence in improving the product and killing bugs.
You're talking about history now, which is quite a different matter than present day. There have been regressions (the source-control reversion button worked in 4.0 and not since), but the fixes and added features overwhelm them.
People make their livings with Xcode. They want it not to defeat their efforts to produce good products. It's existentially frustrating. There ought to be fixes. I get it. But nobody's first answer should be that the developers and their management don't care, or aren't trying, or are too dumb to do it.
Disagree. "They" (meaning whoever is in the chain) didn't release a good product. Thus, they were unable to release a good product. Whether or not they could is an entirely different matter, but this has been an ongoing problem now, for well over a year (two years now?), with a gradual decline in the quality of Apple software, from everything from Xcode, to the OS, to Quicktime, to Pro Apps.
-gt
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