Xcode 4 - review | Hacker News Reader

Xcode 4 - review

fireballed.org

89 pointscredo31 comments

Can anyone comment on the differences between this and the Xcode 4 GM Seed 2 that I've been using for the past few weeks?

A bit of browsing led to noticing that the version reported on the welcome screen shown in the screenshots section of Xcode's App Store page is the same a the GM 2 version number.

Of course they could just be reusing screenshots but I'd love for somebody to check this.

Update: I noticed that the download page for Xcode 4 reports that it's version 4A304a, the same as the GM seed.

Oh wow, this review seems to be THE review I've been seeking for weeks. Hope this time I could download the stupid 3GB faster...

The one thing that Xcode 3 does better for me: My main monitor is in portrait orientation. A UI based on a single window with vertical panes doesn't really jive with that.

View -> Assistant Layout

Why is nobody mentioning that Xcode 4 is not a free download? It's only free if you already paid $99 for the developer account. It's $5 for the rest of us.

Though $5 is not a huge amount, it's difficult for me to send that money to Apple. All I have is a debit card. Getting a credit card is impossible for Indian students. I'll have to call an "adult" (I hate that word) and convince them to let me use their credit card for an Xcode purchase.

On the other hand, The Pirate Bay has a free copy I can grab ...

The $5 discussion has been going on all day.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id422352214

Can't you buy prepaid cards (vouchers?) for the App Store like you can for the iTunes music store?

edit: I checked... apparently in principle it is possible if the App can be bought with the same currency as declared on your prepaid Gift Card.

It's even more disappointing for open source projects.

XCode 3 has been updated as well (3.2.6), it includes SDK 4.3 and it's free. You can use it for shipping new apps.

The most annoying part is not that it costs $5. It's that Apple is going to milk those $5 with every update.

Yes, Xcode 3 is still free, but for how long? Suddenly Microsoft starts looking a lot nicer...

  > It's that Apple is going to milk those $5
  > with every update.

How so?

One annoyance he didn't really touch on, but that has driven me up the walls, is that [edit:thanks thought_alarm!!!!] double clicking a build error does not jump to the build results, which are now in a renamed "Logs" view.

Also, it is incredibly slow and crashes several times a day.

That said, the IB integration is amazing and the navigation between related files is so good that I am using it.

Hit Command+7 to view the "Log Navigator", and you'll get the familiar build log and results. You can configure XCode to automatically jump the Log Navigator when a build starts; see the "Behaviors" section in the Preferences.

The Log Navigator includes a history of all your builds, debug sessions, and commits, which is kind of neat.

You can also use Command+' and Command+" to navigate back and forth between build errors or "issues".

Does this include the iOS 4.3 SDK? Or do I have to do another 3GB download in a couple of days if I download this now?

The XCode package you download from the iOS Developer Portal includes the latest iOS SDK, as always. It's not a coincidence that iOS 4.3 and XCode 4 were released on the same day.

The only button I'm offered in the iOS Dev Center says:

> Xcode 4 and iOS SDK 4.3

https://developer.apple.com/devcenter/ios/index.action

Actually there's this Looking for Xcode 3? Download button, right under the Xcode 4 button. :)

Today's Xcode 4 release definitely includes the final iOS 4.3 SDK.

Oddly enough, though, the doc sets only include iOS 4.2.

Good review. Not sure if I should update before finishing the current iOS app I am working on...

You should keep XCode 3 around, regardless. Both versions can co-exist, so install XCode 4 into, say, /Developer4 instead of /Developer.

And when you open your project in XCode 4 it won't trash your XCode 3 project settings or prevent you from going back to XCode 3. However, any project settings you change in XCode 4 won't be visible in XCode 3.

Since my only iOS project is a single-developer one, I plan on refactoring into Xcode 4, since it lets me rethink how I structure the app. I never did a Universal iOS build of the app that I work on because I got frustrated with making it work in Xcode 3 -- it's worlds easier in 4 (if there is a better word for worlds there, use that one instead. you have no idea how much better).

I simply cannot sing the praises of how much sense Workspaces make, especially when dealing with a Universal iOS app. As a recovering Visual Studio user, they were the feature I was genuinely looking for in Xcode.

You might want to take that approach...Xcode 4 in developer preview seemed to misbehave if I imported a 3.2 project, but that could be because it was developer preview.

Finish your app.

---

When you're sipping on Pina Coladas at your mansion in the Bahamas, then you can change your toolchain. :D

Why $5? Seems to be a bit random.

Go to the conclusion, then go to the last paragraph of the conclusion.

>I've always considered Xcode to be the nicest IDE to use in terms of user interface, though it wasn't exactly pretty. It's just the competition was so ugly and cluttered. I've often likened saying Xcode 3 was the prettiest IDE to saying that it was the nicest smelling dog crap. Xcode 4 however, genuinely is pretty. I love looking at it and admiring the amount of work that has gone into it. Apple has had some of the prettiest developer tools in terms of Interface Builder, Instruments, Quartz Composer etc for quite a while, but Xcode was dated. It now feels like the sort of user interface you'd expect from Apple.

Looking at the screenshots, I don't see how it's prettier than, say Visual Studio 2010. Maybe it's subjective? Xcode from the article:

http://fireballed.org/linked/2011/03/09/xcode-pilkington/xco...

Visual Studio:

http://software.intel.com/en-us/blogs/wordpress/wp-content/u...

Not an entirely fair comparison, is it?

Here is the equivalent new project window in Xcode: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4073000/new.png (also: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4073000/project.png)

A shot of the main window: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4073000/main.png

Have you two seen the new project window in vim? It's far less cluttered.

I did not make any statements about the UI of Xcode, I merely pointed out that the comparison was unfair.

For some reason I can't reply to "ugh" again. There's no reply link.

I thought it was obvious that my comment is a joke...

To be fair, that's not really the whole interface, just a section of a sheet showing diffs. Here's what the whole window looks like: http://devimages.apple.com/technologies/tools/images/new_sin...

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