Xcode 9 is Unacceptable

Lots of good stuff to say about MVVM vs MVC but do you really expect with such deep libraries they would start retooling them all? It is not too difficult to follow MVVM pattern with your own VM setup (heck i even prefer it to do it myself). I can't fault Apple for not following MVVM but your point on GIT conflict resolution is of course spot on. The first time that happens we were all dazed and amazed to figure things out, the second time it is a painful annoyance. Now when it happens we all laugh hysterially (as in "manic hysteria") and run for the hills. To use someone's famous words: "what a bag of hurt".

@Bob Avery; I agree wholeheartedly (to the point of holding hands and jumping of the building together) I have filed quite a few bugs with Apple that all seem to go into some sort of sinkhole, never to be seen or heard from again. Perhaps we should form an alternative, visible for everybody, list of garbage Apple is too good to get to? Perhaps that may bend their ivory towers a bit?

This is a rant thread. What do you want to get out of it? If you have a specific question about Xcode, then start a question about that specific topic. Maybe there is an easy fix or workaround.

It seems to me that the vast majority of complaints about Xcode are from people making technical descisions based on social metrics. By that I mean, are they making technical and architectural decisions based on what is best for their product? Or are they doing what people tell them is hip and cool? Xcode 8 works fine for me. This week I plan to release a new version of my software using Base Localization. I've even decided to use auto layout in my next app. I play around with the hip and cool things, but I'm not going to let those things be an obstacle. I have Xcode 9 on my High Sierra test machine. I know what it can and can't do. Some technologies, like Swift for example, won't be ready for years. Other technologies, such as ARC, seemed like a good idea at the time, but have proven themselves to be unworkable in modern contexts.

But I'll be honest. I can make those kinds of decisions because I run my own company. I'm not looking for a job. If I were, I would have a blog with posts that describe how to make Swift do crazy and wonderful things that I used to do in C++ circa 1999.

I don't know how many moons ago you are talking about. I still remember Apple's previous version of a developer environment - MPW. Clearly, no one who complains about Xcode today has ever used that. But the world has changed. There is no more CodeWarrior. We just aren't going to return to the great IDEs of 20 years ago. That world is dead and buried. Apple is well aware of Xcode 9's limitations. Didn't you notice how they recently released an 18 core Mac just so developers can compile Swift in Xcode?

You are correct that eventually Apple's quality issues will catch up. Unfortunately, even if Apple starts losing $15 billion a year this year, they will still have 19 years before they run out of money.

Frustratingly, the problems with Xcode are only one example out of many problems affecting the Mac as a whole these days and are symtomatic of a company that has got lost in a self obsessed, unnecessary, frantic yearly developer cycle. Today my iMac crashed so badly it took nearly half an hour before it re-booted and all it took was to ask Safari to load a web page - one that I have loaded many tmes in the past. Mail will randomly crash sometimes when I double-click on an attached pdf to open it. Apple's own app upgrades sometimes fail to complete. Machine re-boots sometimes fail to complete. My MBP sometimes crashes while it is asleep. The Image capture app has several long standing bugs. Terminal often fails to open in my stored preference settings. I could go on and on.

Mac software is getting steadily worse. There are some bugs in Xcode 9 that have been there for several years over many releases. So yes, this is a rant but despite all the negative reviews here and in the App Store and the huge amount of time invested by a lot of people submitting bug reports the overall impression is that we are simply being ignored - and I guess people need somewhere to let off steam even if we are blowing bubbles in the wind!

This does have a usefull side however, in that newcomers, who only have the option of downloading relatively new versions of Xcode and cannot understand what they are doing wrong will see that it's not their fault, its the fault of the IDE itself in so many cases, which is sad.

If I had a shop window and people kept sticking messages on it about how crap my products were I would want to do something about it but as the other 'rants' here go to show, we feel like we are going backwards and our observations have no power. So I am pleased for you that you can soldier on with XCode 8, but sooner or later you will have to upgrade...

Wait until June. Either Tim Cook or another VP is going to get on stage and talk about about how popular the developer program is. They aren't going to say anything about the Mac, or Xcode bug reports, star ratings, or forum posts. They are going to talk about how many more millions of developers there are this year as compared to last year. Your rants aren't just pointless, they are in direct conflict with hard number of millions of developers spending billions of dollars to run Xcode on Macs. I mean really. Who would you listen to? A bunch of people on your support forums telling you your product was junk? Or literally 2 million more people buying your product this year than last? I sure wish I had Apple's quality and reputation problems. With all due respect, I think you are going to have to find a way to live with Xcode 9. And don't forget Xcode 10 is barely two months away.

>There is no more CodeWarrior.

😉 Spring cleaning just uncovered a like new CodeWarrior T-shirt I haven't seen since...

Blood, Sweat and Code, baby - when geeks were freaks, and if the tools weren't what you wanted, you shut up, got to work, and made your own.

Totally agree with @osmenda.
Every new Xcode version becomes slower and slower (I started with XCode 3).
XCode 9 is disaster! It has ton of bugs. Compile time is terrible. And I have pretty good config - top i7/16Gb/512Gb ssd.
I can't work normally for last year. XCode reduces my productivity in 2 times.

Apple should fix it ASAP. It should be TOP priority.

34568927

Xcode 9 - Comparison View scrolling issues

This one drives me up the wall all the time. 😢 My only work around is to click on the icons in the center bottom -- for instance < 1/5 > . But even in that case the scroll view sometimes clips the comparison difference and I cannot see it. Then I try to scroll to see the difference but that does not work all the time in comparison view. When I scroll the little difference markers move while scrolling! It started in Xcode 9 and sometimes it jumps to the beginning of the comparison. Git is used pretty heavily now days and this just has to be solid.

Moreover, in Swift, I highlight functions and command right click and select jump to definition. Sometimes this does not work for Apple's own api methods. ( shows a view of unformmatted text not showing what I was looking for ) Also, the new popup from right control click seems too heavy a feel in Xcode 9.

It would be nice in the debugger if the symbols could optionally be alphabetized. And sometimes, there are no symbols at all. I have the compiler optimizations turned off when I debug and debug symbols enabled. This one has been around a long time. Kinda remember Xcode 3 did not have this problem. I've gotten use to it which is sad.

It would be nice if Xcode had a better built in code formatter. Think select all with control-i is kind of limited. I know there are Xcode extensions I can get for this but its kind of a hassle.

Not to mention there is no way to clean derived data. I can click on the arrow which takes me there in the finder. I can delete things manually but this seems to imply I know how the inner workings Xcode -- Would not want to remove the wrong thing. There use to be an xcode button for this.

I guess apple didn't take my advice and display an Xcode dashboard. Does anyone have a list or guess of what the major bugs oh I mean undocumented features are this time? Does this version run properly on OSX 10.12.6? or 10.13 without the new filesystem? but using normal HFS filesystem.

Xcode 9.3, indexing not work. Many code no highlighting and cannot goto definition.

Cannot happy coding any more...

XCode Version 9.3 (9E145) hangs when linking code for macOS if Link Time Optimazion enabled.

The previous version of XCode didn't have that problem.

Best regards,

Eigil

I am sorry for this. Is the Xcode 9 unusable for big projects, yes it ***** with swift and the compiler. the basic autofill is not working MANY times. Developers who develop baby projects may find it so great.

This is because of Apple's pace delivery. Guys, the programmers need time to fix and update Xcode. Haste makes Waste!

This should be Productivity = 0.

== is not the same as =. This is a common beginner C programmer error.

Trying to get started with Swift on a MacPro with 16Gb RAM. I haven't found a pattern yet...but as I work through the GuidedTour.playground after every few steps of working through the tour, the IDE stays in the "Running GuidedTour" mode and hangs...no errors. If I exit Xcode entirely and launch again...after the slow startup phase, the same code works fine. This is very frutstrating...😕

Totally agree with you. Xcode is very poor.