Xcode Sucks: Reasons you don't want to develop in iOS

Heath Borders
Senior Software Engineer
Asynchrony Solutions, Inc.
@heathborders

https://github.com/hborders/Xcode-Sucks/

@StealthMountain

Setup Sucks

On-device development requires an Apple Developer Account
Can only support 100 devices per account
The simulator doesn't support gestures, accelerometer, camera
Also has very different performance profile

Editing Text with Xcode Sucks

No Refactoring Support
- Not even renaming
- Xcode claims to support renaming, but lies
No auto-import
Terrible code suggestions (NSStream instead of NSString)

Xcode Projects Suck

Everything in an Xcode project is managed by a single XML file
- Conflicts galore!
Xcode has virtual groups that aren't linked to the filesystem
- Missing files galore!

Xcode Stability Sucks

It crashes all the time (for some once per hour)
bootstrapserver crashes require restarting device

Xcode Debugging Sucks

LLDB crashes
LLDB claims to support Objective-C syntax, but doesn't due to runtime erasure
No hotswapping code

Xcode Command Line Sucks

No command line interface for:
- Installing apps on device or simulator
- Manipulating device data
- Accepting permission to track location

Xcode Testing Sucks

OCUnit (Apple's preferred Unit Testing Framework) is terrible (could be a whole talk)
UIAutomation is crashy/half-baked
Objective-C Sucks
Interfaces are required for all classes
No abstract methods
Frameworks take unparsed code instead of lambdas
No Generics
Can't add null to Collections or Maps
Circular imports are errors
No language spec, just Clang parser code.
Method calls to null are legal, all respond the same
Everything you hate about C
(Java metaphors used)

Apple Sucks

No roadmaps for releases
Barely any visibility into bug fixes
Radar is a terrible bug tracking tool
Rewrote Xcode in 2010, many broken features are still broken 2 years later.
Developer Forums are private, not googleable