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by mikenew 2018 days ago
AppCode. I used to use it a lot, and in many respects it's just plain better than Xcode. You can one-click install a plugin to use vim bindings, for example, whereas in Xcode you have to strip out the code signature so that you can install a third party plugin for vim bindings because, I don't know, fuck you I guess.

The problem was that AppCode was always a few months behind Xcode in terms of Swift support, and Interface Builder never really worked right. So the workflow was to have them both open at the same time and constantly switch back and forth, which at the end of the day just isn't great.

I wish Xcode didn't suck, but it does in so many ways. Not much to be done about it.
2 comments
keyle 2018 days ago
I wish Jetbrains could do what they did with .NET which is Resharper. A plugin for Visual Studio that brought IntelliJ like features and smartness to it. It was a breeze.

Unfortunately I don't think XCode is built to handle third party vendors plugins and it never will (which is why Appcode exists in the first place).

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mythz 2018 days ago
Xcode used to allow plugins but then disabled them in favor of relatively useless Source Editor extensions which offers nowhere near the capability required to build something like R#.

A stand-alone IDE like AppCode is the way forward, JetBrains usually take a while to get their new IDE's up to speed and catch up with the latest language & platform features, but afterwards is able to add a tonne of smarts and maintain feature parity fairly quickly as they've done with Rider which offers a much nicer & faster UX than VS.NET/R#.

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pjmlp 2018 days ago
My Visual Studio is an happy boy without Resharper bloat, never got the point of it.
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tonyedgecombe 2018 days ago
Every time I upgrade Visual Studio I try running it without Resharper. I’m finding I can last longer before I give in each time but I always do end up installing it.
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coldtea 2017 days ago
Maybe, but people say similar things for e.g. using Vim over an IDE too, though...
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faizmokhtar 2018 days ago
Xcode used to have this awesome plugins ecosystem (Alcatraz) that was built by 3rd party devs.

Then XcodeGhost happened. They try to replace it with Xcode Source Editor Extension but that one is just not as good as Alcatraz

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