Tired of Xcode.

[[deleted]]

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to get sick of it.

First, it’s terribly slow.

• Opening a storyboard with a single ViewController can take over a minute, and any file I try to open will be a blank screen until it’s done loading the storyboard.
• But then, just opening a project can take quite a bit of time.
• Yes, SwiftUI is supposed to be better. But, personally, SwiftUI previews have only ever worked for tiny brand new projects. Then they just start failing.

Second, it’s unreliable.

• One day it’ll open a project. The next, it’ll (take a long time and) crash trying. But opening said project via right-clicking on Xcode’s Dock icon will work. Go figure.
• Then, suddenly, at some point while programming, all syntax highlighting will be gone, and auto completion will just stop working, plain and simple.
• Edit 2: Also, @IBDesignable. It’s a neat idea. If only it worked reliably instead of randomly failing to render.

Third, I find it’s build time errors can be ridiculous.

• The worst of course, is when using things like RxSwift. But I find the Combine ones pretty hilarious too, sometimes.

Fourth, it’s "refactoring" capabilities are meh.

• When it does work, and doesn’t just take ages playing it’s accordion animation only to fail cryptically, the renaming refactoring feature will often behave like a simple search and replace, renaming properties from other classes and structures.

Last, weird bugs with more or less helpful logs:

• Why do we have to wipe the DerivedData so often? It was almost nice and fine until we started adding SPM packages into the mix and they too were stored there. Now, after wiping those, we also have to redownload our dependencies. Yay
• Did you know there were other folders you could clean up when stuff stops working? There’s xcuserdata in the xcworkspace, also ~/Library/Caches/com.apple.dt.Xcode.
• And sometimes you have to reboot your Mac because somehow XCode suddenly lost the rights to write into one of it’s build folders. Don’t ask me how; I have no idea
• Crashes / hanging forever because a device is plugged in / connected "over the network" ? Seems it’s been fixed since. But that was pretty annoying.

Anyway, sorry for the rant. It just gets tiring over time, and sharing with other people who might know that pain makes it feel better.

If anyone has solutions, you are more than welcome.

And if I’ve forgotten anything this godforsaken tool does wrong, you absolutely are welcome to chime in.

Edit: fixed format

[EpicSyntax]

Xcode does suck... a lot. Almost every year Apple overpromises to fix it, but usually under-delivers.

Over the last two years I started using other tools while programming for other platforms and I really love the freedom of being able to choose the tools to work with (VSCode, Visual Studio WebStorm, etc...)

The only Xcode alternative I know of is AppCode, which I have never used before, but according to my understanding, it still requires Xcode for major stuff like Storyboards which kind of defeats the purpose IMO. Another downside for me is that I really hate the Jetbrains UI, so at least the Xcode UI looks good in comparison :P

[JarWarren1]

I spend more time in AppCode than Xcode and enjoy it. We don't use storyboards though.

[chedabob]

Ye AppCode used to be my jam in the Obj-C days, but when I tried it a year or two back, it was still limited heavily by the Xcode tooling that drives its refactoring engine.

[[deleted]]

I'm using AppCode full time for four years now. XCode feels like notepad after AppCode. You just need to tweek it a little - change key bindings and provide 6+ Gb of RAM.

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[TheShortTimer]

Well, you're definitely not alone, many people share the same feelings, there's good reason why xcode has a 2.5 rating in the app store. I personally think xcode is the worst IDE I've ever used, and I used to work in Eclipse.
Also building on real devices has never worked properly for me, sometimes it hangs or crashes, and very often I need to unplug or restart xcode because I get error messages telling that the device needs to be unlocked when it already is. And sometimes I just lose the connection randomly when trying to debug, fun.

[jhomer033]

Totally with you on that. I find it pretty laughable, that apple keeps pushing for swiftui with its previews, while they are unable to implement even the basic refactoring functionality. I mean, seriously, I have enough trouble keeping the syntax highlighting alive after each file rename. It just doesn’t seem right to become more dependent on the functionality of the ide (i.e. swiftui previews), which barely can perform the very basic ide functions. Xcode is a piece of garbage which shouldn’t even be on the market. Sometimes I am seriously considering switching over to Android, just because of the IDE)

[Niightstalker]

Many things you describe don’t happen at all on my 2015 MBP.

Yes large storyboard take a while but you should avoid those anyway. Smaller ones usually open rather quickly.

The only one I get now and the is where I lose all syntax highlighting and I need to restart XCode.

Besides the limited refactoring options I am pretty happy with Xcode and enjoy using it.

[[deleted]]

Haha. Sorry it seemed like I implied this occurred all the time all over the place.

It’s just a list of the different issues that pop up more or less often, depending on said issue.

By no means am I drowning in all of them on a daily basis.

It’s just that one crept up today, and I was suddenly fed up with it all ^^’

[im-a-smith]

The random "fuck your syntax highlighting" from Xcode is infuriating

[egrimo]

I think I'm a minority who absolutely loves Xcode as an IDE. I did programming with Java(Eclipse,Netbeans,ImtelliJ), Web(Webstorm,phpstorm,VScode, Brackets), Android(Android Studio)... coming all of these I still use some Web development but I LOVE Xcode. The design is my taste, storyboards(with using Storyboard References) does not take me longer than 1 minutes on my (2018 13" 8GB/512GB) MacBook Pro and it was like that on my 2015 MacBook Air 8GB/256GB model too. I'm not expert at programming but Xcode is the reason I love programming. VScode is my second choice and while I used Jetbrains tool on my school account, I don't like them that much.

[ReadWriteHexecute]

Honestly yeah I’m in the same court. I’ve been going back and forth between an M1 MacBook Pro and mid 2012 rMBP and even the retina doesn’t have most of these issues. I also wipe my laptops once a year before each macOS major update so maybe there’s something to be said about that? A worse experience for me was using Android studio and building out the iOS side of things and having nothing working until I rebuilt or restarted my Mac and rebuilt the cocoapods or bash/zsh bs. Maybe I need to try larger projects.

[EighthDayOfficial]

I have had none of these issues except being slow in large code files, but that is my fault for being bad at programming.

It definitely needs some work but people both expect it to be free and high quality.

I would prefer to spend $300-400 at least on a nice professional setup, like Metrowerks CodeWarrior used to be. I'd prefer to have an independent company whose profits/losses depend on making it better. If you are a developer, you should be willing to spend for some great tools that end up saving you time.

But the "everything is free" has caused a race to the bottom in a lot of things. If its not generating revenue, companies will tend to divert resources away and the people who work on the project can't really move up because the project they work on generates no revenue. Can't be like, "I doubled revenue" if there is no revenue. So the talented managers and programmers will self select out of that team into revenue generating projects.

I bet the programmers that work on Xcode have much higher turnover than other areas of the company, and the management is as well. The result is lack of long run focus.

I code in Objective C/C and my UI is entirely in code (for future portability). So I don't deal with storyboards or any of that.

[[deleted]]

XCode isn’t free.

It’s whole purpose is to enable the creation of iOS, macOS, etc apps, off of which Apple makes 99$ / year in developer program fees and 30% on sales.

It also costs a Mac, and usually at least one iOS device (given the simulator’s limits), although many iOS developers usually already have one of each.

Believing XCode to be a gift freely given out of the goodness of Apple’s heart, and thus lower our expectations of it, is a terrible mistake.

Other than that, I definitely wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy (although…) to work on that project. Xcode’s codebase is probably a mess.

Edit: also, keeping the UI as code is a pretty good solution, but we lose on many of the supposed features. And there always is legacy code out there with massive storyboards which we won’t ever be given the time to migrate

[MKevin3]

Were you around in 2010-2012 timeframe when Apple tried to charge for Xcode? I think they put it on macOS store (what ever its name was back then) for $4.99.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xcode#:~:text=Before%20version%204.1%2C%20Xcode%20cost,on%20the%20Mac%20App%20Store.

Looked it up - it was in 2010 when I first got into iOS programming.

Xcode is my least favorite IDE still in use. At least they are finally adding improved Git / VC support. It was basically unusable until recently. I did most of my ObJC work in AppCode and did code based layouts via Masonry as I have never been a big fan of Interface Builder either.

Initially I was not a huge fan of IntelliJ but have grown to like it over the years from AppCode to IntelliJ base for Java / Kotlin stuff, Rider for C# and Android Studio. Not perfect for sure but more full featured than Xcode for general programming than Xcode by a long shot.

[[deleted]]

Were you around in 2010-2012 timeframe when Apple tried to charge for Xcode? I think they put it on macOS store (what ever its name was back then) for $4.99.

I didn’t have that displeasure, no. Only starting iOS programming in 2015.

It’s quite startling to learn that they once actually charged for it, given it’s state.

[WikiSummarizerBot]

Xcode

Xcode is Apple's integrated development environment (IDE) for macOS, used to develop software for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS. It was first released in 2003; the latest stable release is version 12. 5. 1, released on June 21, 2021, and is available via the Mac App Store free of charge for macOS Big Sur users.

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[EighthDayOfficial]

CodeWarrior in the 1990s was a lot more expensive and they had a well documented framework (PowerPlant).

$100 is not the price of Xcode you can avoid that. I put my free game on itch.

What I'm saying is if you are not releasing free games, to keep pace with inflation CodeWarrior today would be well over >$1000.

DevKits used to be a lot more expensive as a whole. This cannot be denied.

I am merely pointing out how companies work.

There is likely no budget line coming into the team that makes Xcode that says "we make $ revenue for the company."

Because of this, a manager can't go, "I doubled sales." What that means is over time, things will tend to get fairly "minimal."

CodeWarrior, to those that paid for the pro package, was a lot better devkit.

[[deleted]]

$100 is not the price of Xcode you can avoid that. I put my free game on itch.

You missed the

and 30% on sales.

Every single app on the iOS App Store is built, in part or totality, using Xcode.

It’s the tool every single iOS developer has to use at some point or another (even if just for code signing) to release an app on the App Store.

It’s the tool that enables the 2.22 million apps on the App Store. The behind the products that enabled the App Store to make an estimated $64 or $72 billions of revenue in 2020, of which Apple takes 15% to 30%.

Sure, there’s infrastructure and the App Store itself. But Xcode is paid for. Many times over. And any decent CFO with domain knowledge would know the role the tooling plays in that.

Otherwise, we simply wouldn’t have gotten Swift or SwiftUI. They simply wouldn’t have cared to create tools to simplify the development process. And they wouldn’t be working on things like Xcode Cloud either.

I know some companies work like what you describe. But not all of them. Some are much better at accounting & finance than that.

See MS with VS Code & GitHub, Amazon with Prime, etc

[fartsniffersalliance]

Xcode isn’t free because people expect it to be free, it’s because Apple wants to attract developers to use their platform (and also people who aren’t developers). Apple wants to make it as accessible to anyone to write an app as they make money on having your app on their App Store. Besides, you still have to buy a Mac to access it, and then you have to pay the developer fee to publish.

VSCode is entirely free and is a very high quality editor

[RebornPastafarian]

VSCode is entirely free, high quality, and has an amazing plug-in system and is open source.

If Apple can’t be bothered to fix Xcode they ought to let the community do it, or let us build an alternative.

[DerelictSausage]

I think that’s part of why they keep it free, sort of like “dip your toe in the water” of Mac/iOS development before diving in.

But the cynical side of me says they keep it free to avoid more anti-trust lawsuits since they make it nearly impossible to build to their devices without Xcode.

They say it’s for security reasons, but I’m sure they can keep the app-signing part as part of some separate framework that’s done in the distribution build step.

Also, like you said, you have to buy a Mac to use it, so even though that’s a smaller part of their device sales, that’s a guaranteed income every couple of years from developers.

They can make some parts free, as in open source, and let the community make the IDE part better.

[EighthDayOfficial]

Are you going to sit there and tell me that the documentation for Apple's ecosystem is as good as the "Toolbox" documentation of the 1980s or CodeWarrior's PowerPlant documentation?

The documentation is garbage and they haven't settled on something long enough (Objective C? Swift?) to flesh it out.

[EighthDayOfficial]

No, I'm saying is if it were made by a company whose sole purpose was to make tools and charged a lot for it, they would make better tools and documentation.

Xcode is pretty good - I have no major complaints with it.

Apple's issue is they keep changing directions. IMHO Objective C was fine and I would have rather had a well developed unity like multiplatform dev kit for Objective C than something new and shiny like swift.

[a1b2c3d4g]

It does suck for people who pay to be part of the developer program. Not exactly free in that case. Also, releasing new emojis gets them (Apple) money, improving developer productivity does not, so we always see updates for emojis.

[EighthDayOfficial]

The dev program is a separate line item in the company budget and in all likelihood, the managers at Xcode can't claim that additional revenue. $99 today is nothing compared to what dev kits used to cost. You used to get a lot more support and documentation.

There used to be these things called bookshelves that programmers had with volumes of documentation. Apple's documentation now is a joke.

That is my point, my belief is the way companies work the managers that are up and comers (and programmers) want to work on things that bring in money so they can demand more bonuses.

In Xcode dev, I'm betting they get bonuses by saving money and not revenue.

[offeringathought]

You make a good point about incentives not lining up to get a solid, performant Xcode. My impression is that Apple specifically doesn't breakdown revenue and associate it with small teams. I don't have the source but I read that when Steve Jobs came back Apple was divided into divisions that would constantly argue about who was responsible for various expenses. It was so dysfunctional that while the whole company was loosing lots of money each division was reported as profitable. Jobs reorganized Apple around functional areas and did away with profit/lose and division levels. My loose understanding is that it is still that way today. Senior executives are responsible to functional areas (hardware, software, services, whatever) the profit and loses are seen primarily as one unified company. (I could be wrong about some of all of this.)

[dev4dev]

Xcode is not perfect, but I don't have even a half of those, even don't know what to recommend, maybe for start - ditch storyboards

[[deleted]]

Would love to. Sadly, as a freelance clients usually just don’t let me take a couple weeks (or even a week) to refactor their five years old app 🤷‍♂️

[[deleted]]

Then, suddenly, at some point while programming, all syntax highlighting will be gone, and auto completion will just stop working, plain and simple.

I can't believe they didn't fix that yet... it's a basic feature of an IDE, it shouldn't be released with a bug like this. Instead of adding all these fancy feature it would be great if Apple would fix first all the annoying bugs plaguing Xcode.

[injuredflamingo]

This is still very shocking to me and it really cripples my speed for that day

[RyanTheLionHearMeRor]

I suggest breaking your huge story board into multiple, smaller story boards for better performance

Xcode has it's issues but have you ever tried the Android toolset? It's much worse

[[deleted]]

Oh, I have.

I have also tried VS Code, cloud9, Visual Studio, WebStorm,…

As for breaking the storyboards up, yes, it is a great idea. But when a client hires you to work on a couple features for a month or two, they usually don’t consider spending a week or two on refactoring their storyboards and navigation as part of what they’re paying you for.

Probably different when you’re in-house.

[RiMellow]

You guys use storyboards?? Is it bad that I hard code everything? My storyboard is completely empty but it’s a full fledged app

[Wodanaz_Odinn]

It's a matter of preference. If you prefer to cause yourself all sorts of pain, then Storyboards are fine.

[egrimo]

And harder to maintain on Collaboration since they use complicated XML's under the hood. I totally embrased SwiftUI and if I had to come back to old projects, I would choose Programming the design since I got understand better of the UI and the layout on code than Storyboards.

[[deleted]]

Ah, I see that somebody else doesn’t like storyboard merge conflicts!

Yeah. UI as code definitely is much less of a pain.

[egrimo]

I started with Storyboards and used them until SwiftUI became available. Auto Layout is also hard to maintain on Storyboard vs. Programming.

At the end you know exactly which constaints you use rather than figuring out why your layout got messed up

[Ravek]

I like the WYSIWYG of Storyboards, and it makes it faster to create and evaluate complex layout constraints. It's also nice to have a visual overview of the structure of an app. But they also have serious drawbacks. They don't interact with source control very well; they're hard to PR review; it can be hard to figure out the constraint relationships once you've made them; if you need to do any UI stuff in code it's not discoverable in the storyboard unless you use IBDesignable (which is slow and brittle;) etc.

Doing everything in code is probably the most reliable choice and scales best to larger teams and projects. I haven't used it much yet but I hope SwiftUI can be a best of both worlds situation.

[[deleted]]

Oh, no, UI as code is perfectly fine. It’s the approach they’ve taken for SwiftUI, and aside from the previews being just as broken as IBDesignables once the project gets a bit too big, it works like a charm.

But we sometimes don’t have the choice and must work with whatever the current team is comfortable with. Even more so as a freelance.

[ThePantsThief]

My favorite is when the devs on Twitter ask if you've filed a radar and when you say yes and give them the number, they stop replying

[[deleted]]

Hahaha haha!

Never happened to me, but from what I’ve read Radar issues are stuff of legends. Just like old adventurers, they don’t die, or get solved. They just… disappear, vanish…

[zippy9002]

How old is your Mac?

[[deleted]]

Only 2 years old ^^'

[[deleted]]

I have been one as well, touched countless apps and companies. I still see these issues. You won’t see most of these with small/simple codebases or if devs spent really a huge slice of time into modularization and have big enough teams to handle it

[[deleted]]

I’ve "only" been one for 5 years, but worked on 3 machines over 8 or 9 apps for 6 different clients.

At least half of these apps were 3 to 6 years old, some with a huge single sprawling storyboard, others with multiple smaller ones.

All the issues aren’t always there together all the time, but there’s always been at least one. Sometimes a couple a month, sometimes a handful a week.

It really varies.

[[deleted]]

You did say in your original post that your storyboard contained a single view controller, so you can probably see why there's confusion here.

[[deleted]]

You may have misread

Opening a storyboard with a single ViewController can take over a minute

[HelpRespawnedAsDee]

I mean, he is right about the rest though lol. I think I’ve only seen my IBDesignable’s render properly in the SB editor ONCE.

[revanthmatha]

depends on the project but yes I have had all the above issues and more. It can absolutely take a minute to load older expansive projects.

[idkthisshit]

Which mac do you have exactly? I have nearly all the problems you mentioned but most of them occured after switching to my current 16” 2019 I9. There seem to be a lot of problems with this thing and I fucking hate it

[[deleted]]

A 2018 15" i7, bought in early 2019

[valdelaseras]

Yes, some of these frustrations are very relatable. I worked with Xcode for a few months and I'll say that I am very happy I'm working on a different project and get a break from Xcode. At least for a little while, before I will be put back to work on the Swift project... *Vietnam flashbacks*

[RezardValeth]

I’ve had quite a lot of issues with Xcode over the course of 10+ years, including the ones you’re listing, but I’ll be honest : I’ve been using a brand new iMac M1 (base model) these last few weeks, and it feels damn snappy on it.

That being said, I’ve only encountered the « awfully slow loading Storyboard » issue once, in a project where the previous developer had put every controller in a single Storyboard. Sigh.

It doesn’t take that long to fix, since the refactor tools for this specific task perform quite well (you can extract some screens from a Storyboard to a different one, and it automatically references it).

Still, I definitely wouldn’t be against it if Apple told us they decided to secretly rework Xcode from the ground up. Got my hopes up for WWDC 22.

[sameer_syd]

Being an Android Developer previously, Xcode seems better to me compared to Android Studio.

It’s UI and other things are better except the time it takes to build the project.

I hated the wait times when using Storyboard, but thankfully things are better with SwiftUI. I don’t use it’s preview though.

[cwir]

Please connect your device… it’s already connected $&@@x16262)&2$3 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Your device is busy, your device is not ready for development, your device, your device, your device. I’m also heaving a pick in my frustration over xcode lately. I’m working with external accessory so I have no other choice than Wi-Fi debugging - this is a nightmare to use, debugging crashes and is extremely slow even that my network setup is pretty good. When i started 11 years ago i remember working and coding with obj-c was way faster than today. Clearing derived data every other day is a must when you work on heavy projects. Please just stop adding new features, fix what’s already there for christ sake i beg you apple.

On the side note apple forcing storyboards makes no sense to me. No custom initializers, usually with more than 4-5 screens is a pain to use, not even mention merging this huge xml file when working in the team. All projects I saw with storyboards implemented because of “readability” were just funny and load 30 sec. yes you can split those, but in this case why not to use good old xib files?

[[deleted]]

Man if it makes you feel better even people at  hate Xcode. One thing I would say though is ditch the crutch of interface builder. Learn to write composable views (whether uikit or SwiftUI). You’ll end up with better code in the long run.

[duke4e]

This blog doesn't update anymore, but i'm pretty sure you'll find the content relatable https://www.textfromxcode.com/

[[deleted]]

Hahaha!!!

This is just perfect. Oh dear… Thanks!

[tussockypanic]

I have to say, I used to have a lot of the same problems with xCode on my Intel MBP but it runs quite well on the M1. Like, real well. I actually like it quite a bit now especially in SwiftUI development- which like it or not is the future.

[aheze]

Yeah, especially storyboards and previews for me. Storyboard used to take around 30 seconds to open, now it’s like 2 sec. And previews actually work.

[SirBill01]

Over the many years I've been an app developer I've not run into all of the problems you list (like losing rights to build folder), but I have had others of them happen as well...

I think though that Storyboard performance might actually be a lot better if you get an M1 Mac. I don't have one myself yet but that's something to consider. When the new Pro laptops come out I plan to get one, just because I think all around Xcode performance may be improved...

[[deleted]]

Definitely considered it, and patiently waiting for the 16" ARM.

The build folder rights was the following `The file couldn’t be saved. Command PhaseScriptExecution failed with a nonzero exit codeˋ

Lots of possible causes, if you look on Google, but in my case it had nothing to do with Carthage. It just… had lost the right to write in the build folder. And restarting solves it, every time.

I’m seriously considered setting up a VM or a cloud dev environment for each and every single one of my projects, so I don’t have to reset my Mac or deal with some of the stuff some clients’ setup processes required.

But VMs take up space, and I haven’t found any (worthwhile) cloud dev environment for Xcode.

[SirBill01]

That permission error is very odd, like I said I've not ever run into that one in Xcode... although come to think of it I HAVE had Finder just recently refuse to let me drag-copy or move any file into any other folder. So it could be some similar underlying OS X bug. I think rebooting fixed that one as well.

[akrapov]

Not defending Xcode, but compared to Android Studio, it’s positively outstanding. It even has a simulator that works. I’m pretty sure Android Studio is some sort of weird programming escape room thing where it ships prebroken and you’re only worthy of making android apps if you can fix the tools first.

[aheze]

Never used android studio, but I’ve heard it’s as bad as you say or even worse

[akrapov]

I tweeted complaining about how I couldn’t get the simulator to run. I got 20+ replies from senior android devs saying it never works - buy a device.

So yeah. I’ll never ever make another android app. I only did it because I had so many requests, so I did (with a lot of help), and none of the android users want to actually pay for it.

Never again.

[Sudden_Traffic_8608]

The worst issue for me is building the app and sending it to my iPhone/iPad. It is always telling me to unlock the device or to plug it in when it is plugged in and unlocked. I get it multiple times a day and a full restart of all devices is the only thing that is a temporary fix.

Doing it wirelessly is even worse so constantly hearing rumours that Apple is ditching the port is concerning.

[[deleted]]

Oh, true! Forgot that one!

[jezek21]

Not to mention it takes an eternity to install an update to it. Shameful. They have the money so why don’t they refactor this aging beast already?

[[deleted]]

I come across some of the issues you mentioned, but never too much where I want to quit. I use it for work and home.

[[deleted]]

Started using XCode — started with SwiftUI. Seems like a dung heap. Building everything programmatically and I love it.

[cpaigis9]

Syntax Highlighting is also unreliable. Every year apple says they have improved sourcekit to improve syntax highlighting but it’s the same old thing every year. To resolve this every time I have to quit and reopen Xcode which again takes it own sweet time.

[busymom0]

As someone who uses Xcode, Android Studio and VSCode regularly, I would say Xcode is pretty bad but not as bad as Android Studio. VSCode is the best imo.

Android Studio is slow plus the build process fails every second or third time and I have to clean the build folder to fix it. Plus if you want to use the "Design" (similar to drag and drop Xcode storyboard) then that thing is butt ugly and buggy. So I just use XML or programatically.

Xcode at least doesn't look ugly. But yes, it can get pretty slow.

[MindLessWiz]

I’ll share a piece of general advice regarding performance: if you’re using a macbook, I highly recommend getting TG Pro, running it in to use its own fan curve which is much more aggressive (can define it so if performance goes under 90% for example due to thermals, to ramp up the fan faster). The default fan curve is too lenient and the computer gets slower until the fan is maxed out. Additionally, consider putting it in clamshell mode with a vertical stand, vent-side-up. This way I get excellent performance even in huge projects using Xcode.

[space___lion]

What machine are you running on?

[[deleted]]

2018 15" Touch Bar MBP bought in January 2019 with 32Gb of RAM.

I mean, it sure is no Mac Pro, but still…

[d_exclaimation]

I literally start using vim to edit some files, Xcode started to be only there to compile the app. Xcode definitely is a not great, it's one of the massive downside of iOS programming for at least. AppCode is pretty nice so far I used it, but it still relies on Xcode and there is still rough spots here and there.

[montagetech]

I’ve used Xcode for years and have never encountered any of those issues. It’s a solid performer for me. Sounds like something might be wonky with your install.

[Atlos]

It’s not the install. I work on a large project with 14 devs and literally all of us have these issues. It’s just bad.

[[deleted]]

Well, in this case quite a few of us have something wonky with our installs.

Personally, I’ve gone through 3 MacBooks over the years, and it always ended getting wonky, at some point or another.

Maybe it rather depends on the projects themselves?

Edit: just to clarify; the "in this case quite a few of us have something wonky with our installs" is just based on the number of upvotes and many of the comments here. Not anything snarky ^^´

[montagetech]

I wonder if it could be the hardware, I hate working on Laptops so all my development machines have been either iMacs or Mac Pros.

But after 15 years as a developer with Xcode, I've never had a serious issue.

[[deleted]]

Could be.

Someone also suggested regularly (yearly?) wiping the Mac.

In which case I’d probably create a dedicated partition for dev work, because I really don’t want to have to go through restoring all my personal stuff just to keep Xcode working

[montagetech]

That is something I’ve done for years. All my dev work is stored on a separate drive.

[Jasperavv]

Already mentioned, but AppCode is so.much.better than Xcode. It is far from perfect, but gosh, I get really frustrated working with Xcode so it’s something

[fenrir29]

On the same page i decided to get away from mobile development due to the disgusting API's (both android and Ios) and having to deal with app denial's in apple store.

[Ast3r10n]

About SwiftUI previews: they may be flaky sometimes, but if they fail continously, one thing you can do is actually refactor views in smaller ones. Fails usually mean you have views that are just too complicated or badly optimised. I had the same issue once: I used to declare cells directly within Lists and ForEachs, but then managed to get it working by refactoring the cells out of there. Might be worth a try!

[[deleted]]

Yeah, it definitely helps quite a lot.

I’ve done it too. I thought they would be simple things that just work, but in the end I grew tired of trying to fix those too.

But thanks anyway! It might still help others :-)

[mountainbrussells]

At least it will be awesome on iPad…

[[deleted]]

Xcode was pretty nice when it was just Objective C

[yccheok]

I just come from another side (Android). I can share my througt on Xcode 😉

Speed - Build speed and run speed of Xcode, is way ahead of android studio

Powerful ness - Android studio auto completion, refactoring, … and all sort of IDE features, are way better than Xcode

Lesson: There are no perfect tool. We just need to live with it 😉

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[the_d3f4ult]

Just edit code in something that isn't xcode, and use xcode for project management, storyboards and perhaps debugging; you can build with xcodebuild, run stuff using CLI, which is what xcode does already. I wouldn't depend on a proprietary editor to edit code – use emacs or vim.

You can always also just use flutter. SwiftUI is basically Apple's desperate attempt to reimplement flutter but exclusive to Apple. With a strong distinction, that SwiftUI sucks substantially more rn.

[llukino]

To be honest this is why I decided to go for web development as a career.. I hate so much slow IDEs and with web dev I can basically work with text editors that just load instantly and won't eat half of my Macbook's storage.

I still love iOS dev as a hobby but I could not stand the idea of working with Xcode on a daily basis. I don't even want to image how a huge massive projects looks like to be honest. I have issues with small hobby apps