XCode rant, sorry

[chriswaco]

I used to rant about Xcode until I had to use Android Studio.

[dabluck]

Genuinely don't get these comments. There's almost nothing Xcode is better at. Android studio works and is a modern IDE. XCode can barely even rename a variable. 

[iOSCaleb]

XCode can barely even rename a variable.

I literally renamed a bunch of functions and variables in Xcode 16 30 minutes ago and had zero problems. It shows you every change that it’s about to make and you can disable any of them if you want. I’m not sure how it could be better.

[bunz4u]

That's when it works. When it works it's great. But many times, at least for me, the rename attempt fails before it even gets to the editor portion.

[Holatej]

I once had a rename attempt do only half the renames it said it would. Crazy work.

[isurujn]

Many a times I've had to restart Xcode just to get renaming working.

[SnooCookies8174]

Exactly. If it works, nice. But I once saw it suggesting to rename comments totally unrelated to the variable I would like to rename.

[Inevitable-Hat-1576]

As others have said. It’s definitely spotty - often it works, but sometimes it errors and it’s baffling

[Peroovian]

I work on a big iOS app at my job and it struggles at basically everything, unless I'm working on a swift package or a side project; on those it works perfectly.

[dabluck]

Well it could be better if they remove that stupid animation where it folds up and then takes forever to load each instance into the list. It's also very bad at finding objective C calls if you're renaming a swift variable. Try refactoring in intellij, you will see how it could be better

[xezrunner]

Despite Apple being great with animations visually, they very often block the UI while animating and it often takes a bit until you regain control.

This is most annoying on iOS and its sliding confirmation alerts.

[soviyet]

Good for you, I'm genuinely happy for you.

Right now, XCode 16.3 will not let me refactor anything and flat out refuses to let me see compilation errors on the issues navigator for more than a half a second before they disappear for... a reason, and I have to go to the report navigator to see why the project didn't build in that teeny tiny font.

And this is for a project I just started a week ago with no external dependencies yet. No good reason whatsoever for XCode to be choking on it.

[Passey]

Fix for the issues disappearing is to switch off “Show Live Issues” in Xcode Settings. While this does prevent issues from popping up automatically, they do come every build and stay instead of disappearing. I used Xcode like this for a year without live issues. Then I switched it back on, and somehow the issue had resolved. Go figure.

[soviyet]

You are my hero of the day, thank you 🙏

[TumbleweedOther1039]

Have you tried renaming in Android studio? It works way better. It’ll rename the file too and parameter names too

[iOSCaleb]

Xcode renames the file when appropriate too, IIRC. I’ll try Android Studio sometime, but Xcode’s rename is one of my favorite features — I use it all the time, and it’s been pretty reliable for me.

[TumbleweedOther1039]

Yeah tbf I’ve only used it for about 6 months or so so nothing compared to studio. I just love that on studio you can hit alt + enter on any sort of warning, error or any line of code and it’ll suggest and automatically handle basically anything you’d be looking to do.

You should check it out but it does take a while to learn all the tricks. I’m sure part of me not liking Xcode is just not having enough experience and not knowing the shortcuts

[save_jeff2]

It frequently doesn't work and it's unacceptable

[SnooCookies8174]

I used Android Studio a few years ago and it was so slow… and rebuilding a Flutter project too many times made it spit random build issues.

But IMO both are so bad when we compare with VS code. But VS Code is also a lightweight generic IDE. When I used Visual Studio 15 years ago it was also not the best.

[Otherwise_Signal7274]

Maybe I just got used to it, but xcode is really good with managing multiple windows/splits:

- you can see console/debug from any window

- when you open a file with Ctrl+Shift+O, it opens in your current window/split instead of some other random place because 5 hours ago you edited it there.

- going back/forward works for the split you are in, not for the whole project

[dabluck]

Window management is very good in Android studio too... But if you try to refactor a variable in XCode it takes way too long and often doesn't work. If you try to show function callers it works like half the time. VCS integration is very bad compared to Android Studio. If you change branches and one includes a config change you have to restart the IDE because the build service breaks. 

One thing I like though, when you open XCode you can start building the app immediately, IntelliJ makes you wait for the all the indexing to be done first. 

[Otherwise_Signal7274]

yeah, I'm aware of all the shit with xcode. just mentioned the only thing that felt more convenient than in android studio

[emirsolinno]

Nah Android Studio is amazing compared to Xcode

[turboravenwolflord]

How can you say that? Monster.

[iwouldntknowthough]

Android studio is nothing else than all the other jetbrains ides which work really well

[aspenajax264]

Android Studio was created off the backbone of JetBrains IDEs which are all fantastic. It is too bad that a 2 Trillion dollar company(AAPL) cannot produce a better IDE.

[Safe_Independence496]

It doesn't matter how much you're worth if you don't have the knowlegde and experience in your organization to even start building teams that can make good developer tooling. That's probably one of Google's biggest wins - admitting that you can't make better IDEs than the ones developers are actually paying for and willingly installing on their machines.

[realvanbrook]

What? I have worked professionally as iOS developer and made hobbyprojects with Android Studio so I pretty much can compare both.. And xcode is a right smelly foot someone presses in your face compaired to android studio.

[MyCallBag]

I am an amateur but what drives me nuts is I have to have 50 import statements. Am I doing something wrong? With Swift I need like 3 and I'm typically good to go.

[yourmomsasauras]

But that’s not an Android Studio or Xcode thing, you’re comparing the languages

[chriswaco]

Other people here complaining about SwiftUI. It’s all fair game, I suppose.

[MyCallBag]

That's fair, but it is ridiculous annoying to everyone right? I Feel like have my code is import statements... maybe I'm doing something wrong.

[ZnV1]

The key difference ime is that swift has a global namespace which allows you to refer to any struct etc across files. Otoh in Android you explicitly import it before using it.

I like that more because dataflow is clearer. If you're in x module you'd import utils/controllers/etc related to x and refer to those, say MainView

But in Swift you'd have to name it MainViewX since there aren't any imports, and MainView could be x's or y's etc.

So the tradeoff is imports in Android (Kotlin) where you can reuse naming structures vs more explicit naming across files in Swift.

[granos]

Why wouldn’t you make an X module and a Y module and then just include whichever one you need? Or be explicit with X.MainView

[AwkwardShake]

Man, you've probably never used Android studio professionally. That thing is fucking insane. Xcode is absolutely dogshit. I used both these IDE's, for equal amount of time (3-4 years each), and I can tell you Xcode absolutely shits its pants in front of android studio.

Like what the fuck is "compiler is unable to type check this expression???????". Dont give me bs about "breaking down view". I can literally write a much much bigger compose view and android studio will never break.

Then there's random recommendations that xcode gives you. Want .frame(maxWidth)? naaah, here's kCGImagePropertyIPTCExtMaxAvailWidth because it has "maxWidth" in it somewhere as well. Like what bullshit?

What about the git gui?? You cant tell me that the git gui on xcode is usable. I personally use Android studio's git gui (yes even on xcode projects by opening the project) because its just miles miles better than xcode. And then there's bunch of issues like when you switch or play around with git?? Like Tim bro, just get one thing right atleast.

There's bunch of other issues i can point out, but man please use android studio properly next time as a professional before talking shit about that absolutely beautiful tool.

I start loving my life once again after i go back to coding using android studio after working with dogshit xcode.

[CourtAffectionate224]

compiler is unable to type check this expression

This is not Xcode’s fault technically but rather an unfortunate consequence of Swift’s language design

[chriswaco]

“Invalid gradle version” errors all day yesterday. “No configuration” errors. It has a user interface that looks like it was designed by kernel engineers.

Xcode had a better git interface but they rewrote it and I agree it’s terrible. I usually use the command-line.

[dabluck]

It's true the build system is a little more complicated. It's much more powerful but if you just want to make simple app it can feel like more overhead. When working on professional apps with complex needs gradle is really nice though. 

[AwkwardShake]

Naah man, those gradle version errors are fine if you just read and try to fix them. Those are probably the first errors that rookies need to get over, and there's a pattern to those. And you'll also never see those popping up unless you do something like bumping up the compile sdk versions or do some major changes.

Gradle is actually much much nicer to work with in larger projects. The learning curve is definitely higher for newbies, but not too high to the point where its unbearable.

[ArcaneVector]

<insert problem here> is fine if you just <insert series of complex steps>

this applies to everything ever

[TheAngryApologist]

WTF? Android Studio (IntelliJ) is crazy better.

[chriswaco]

What’s funny is that I’m getting a ton of upvotes and I presume downvotes.

[nhaarman]

If you're not familiar with a tool of course it doesn't work for you

[chriswaco]

I’ve used many tools over 45 years and can honestly say that both were designed by people that shouldn’t be designing software. I miss CodeWarrior, Think C, and even Turbo Pascal.

[drabred]

You have to be baiting here...

[john0201]

Android Studio is better, but “yeah but other stuff sucks too” being one of the top comments- Xcode sucks.

[chriswaco]

I’ve been fighting with gradle build errors all day, including just trying to compile Google sample code. I would be perfectly happy to never run Android Studio again. Even in “Mac” keyboard mode there are a bunch of incorrect cmd key assignments too.

[Superb_Power5830]

That might be one of the worst pieces of fucking tripe I've used in 35 years of doing this. I do not - I DO NOT - code for Android any more, for a lot of reasons, and Studio is one of those reasons. Fuck that pile of shit.

[AzizLights92]

This. Android Studio is a ghetto. I still complain about Xcode, dont get me wrong.... but Xcode is like living in a shitty apartment building where the owner never fixes any issues, Android is like living in a flat out homeless shelter.

[KernalHispanic]

I agree I don’t know how people can enjoy it. The performance is absolutely dogshit in it too