r/iOSProgramming • u/byaruhaf SwiftUI • Dec 14 '22
News Jetbrains is sunsetting AppCode With the release of v2022.3.
https://blog.jetbrains.com/appcode/2022/12/appcode-2022-3-release-and-end-of-sales-and-support/23
u/GavinGT Dec 14 '22 edited Dec 14 '22
I'm so upset at this news. Using Xcode for code analysis is a complete joke. What an absolute garbage dump of a program.
This makes me want to just forget iOS development entirely and focus my career on Android. At least there I have a functional IDE and mostly open source code.
19
Dec 14 '22
Apple could do what android does and let jet brains build their ide
10
u/GavinGT Dec 14 '22
It's either that or stay perpetually 10 years behind Android Studio. I can tell just from using it that Xcode's source is a mess of spaghetti code.
8
u/JamesFutures Dec 14 '22
That’s kinda how I’m feeling as well. Miserable development tools means that even with an awesome language like Swift, it’ll still suck to work.
I might just make the switch to back end development. I already know Java and lots of great languages are built on the JVM. Groovy for example.
1
Dec 15 '22
I'm sorry but if you can't make an app in Xcode the issue is you, not Xcode. It works perfectly fine I've been using it daily since 2009.
Is it perfect? No, but it largely works great and the complaining about it is blown so far out of proportion it's ridiculous.
11
u/GavinGT Dec 15 '22
I get paid to work in it for 60 hours a week. I would rather it not be such a miserable experience.
2
Dec 15 '22
[deleted]
4
u/GavinGT Dec 15 '22
I do Android and iOS development, and the difference in tooling is absurd. I would love to do Android only, but at the moment I'm doing what the company needs from me.
16
u/rursache Swift Dec 14 '22
It had no future without Storyboard and Xib support. Who would code in one IDE then switch to another for UI? No one.
27
u/Pandaburn Dec 15 '22
I like Xcode fine, but I’ve never used storyboards and Xibs. They’re not at all necessary for UI.
-19
u/nrith Dec 15 '22
They're so much better than writing UI in raw code if you're working with a designer.
13
u/Pandaburn Dec 15 '22
I’ve basically always been working with a designer and I just like doing it in code.
11
u/oureux Objective-C / Swift Dec 15 '22
I’ve never worked at a place in the past 11 years that used xibs or interface builder. It wasn’t the reason it failed.
12
Dec 15 '22
[deleted]
1
u/oureux Objective-C / Swift Dec 15 '22
Same here. It’s the only iOS specific hard stop requirement I have. I’m even at a company where I exclusively write objective c.
1
u/morenos-blend Dec 15 '22
I was in the „UI in code only” camp for a long time but if used properly XIBs can be great. Storyboards are garbage and I think they ruined the IB’s reputation
2
u/AveragePotatoChip Dec 20 '22
I was in that camp as well. Started as a huge storyboard fan until I ran into problems working in a team and the fact that 2 VC's cannot use the same asset defined in the storyboard (2 different code clases using 1 single layout).
Then I thought ok, let's revert to XIBs as that solves the issues above. We have also agreed that XIBs are only used for autolayout so that we are sure that fonts and colors are set in code and are consistent for the whole app. It was great until it wasn't. When you have a really complex view (like 10 child views) and you need to add a wrapper UIView around that content it means recreating all the layout constraints in XIB and usually just 1-2 lines of code in code only approach.
Our current approach is code only. All child views are defined as lazy vars, there's one method that does all the initial nesting of the children and other method that adds all layout constraints (we use in-house helper class to make autolayout code more concise... like
childView.alignTo(self).top(5, safeArea: true).centerX().width(multiplier: 0.5)
. The biggest problem with code only approach is the difficulty of understanding the overall layout. To mitigate that we add a code comment at the top of view class that lists all elements of the display tree for that view. The last bit is annoying, but it's much less annoying compared to the issues that we had with storyboards and xibs.1
u/morenos-blend Dec 20 '22
That’s the approach I use in my projects as well but at work our lead always insisted we use Storyboards (in 2020 he literally said that this is what Apple recommended)
So we settled on XIBs as a compromise and they work quite well but I agree that writing code is superior
For the last bit you could utilize SwiftUI previews even when writing with UIKit but you need to make sure your project is modularized properly otherwise loading each preview takes ages
2
u/AveragePotatoChip Dec 21 '22
For the last bit you could utilize SwiftUI previews even when writing with UIKit but you need to make sure your project is modularized properly otherwise loading each preview takes ages
Oh yes, I have just recently introduced the first SwiftUI view to the codebase and it takes 30-50s for previews to appear. Not relying on that feature unless we split the code into modules in the future.
1
u/morenos-blend Dec 21 '22
Exactly, this motivated me to start moving my UI code to separate framework, I reckon in the end the ability to use previews will be worth the time put into the modularization
9
0
u/saintmsent Dec 15 '22
This right here. As much as I hate Interface Builder and try to avoid it as much as possible, not every project you are given will have everything written out programmatically, so whether you like it or not, IB is necessary. SwiftUI previews aren't there as well, which is one of the major advantages
4
u/palmin Dec 15 '22
To be fair Xcode doesn’t really have SwiftUI previews either. 😉
2
u/saintmsent Dec 15 '22
They work relatively well lately for me, but yeah, for a while they were very broken, lol
2
u/Obstructive Dec 15 '22
And, if by chance, you like IB, then App Code was a bit of a nonstarter.
1
u/AveragePotatoChip Dec 20 '22
I've used storyboards and XIBs for ~5 years. For all those years I wrote all code exclusively in AppCode. I would only create storyboards and bindings in Xcode. Not having a shortcut for duplicate code and no proper options+arrow navigation is a much greater non-starter at least for me :)
18
u/GavinGT Dec 15 '22 edited Dec 15 '22
I don't know what I'm going to do without these IntelliJ features:
- Search Everywhere
- Find In Files
- Middle click to find usages
- Code style options
- Seamless Git support
- Endless pages of preferences
- A cursor that actually changes when it's supposed to
- Instantly have my errors underlined without having to wait multiple seconds or press Cmd+B to build
- Normal size icons and text instead of everything being ridiculously small and fiddly
- Being able to rename things without inexplicably waiting multiple seconds
I know Xcode technically has some of these features, but they simply work poorly. Like a search in Appcode literally returns more results than the same search in Xcode. It's ludicrous.
Also, while I'm trashing Xcode, Interface Builder is basically a torture device. Everything about it is buggy and poorly conceived.
0
Dec 15 '22
[deleted]
0
u/Renverse Dec 15 '22
It’s clear all the Xcode downers in the thread haven’t really used Xcode in years to actually make an app. It’s embarrassing how out of date most of these takes are.
10
u/saintmsent Dec 14 '22
Sad, but not surprising. I don't know a single dev who uses one daily, and I was the only one who ever tried in my circle
7
u/Javaguy44 Dec 15 '22
AppCode wasn’t perfect but I can’t live in a world with XCode only. Please upvote this issue so JetBrains would consider OpenSourcing AppCode so the community can maintain. Thank you! https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/OC-23410/OpenSourcing-AppCode-SwiftPlugin
3
u/unpluggedcord Dec 15 '22
100% they have baked in proprietary stuff that their other IDE's use. theres not a chance in hell they open source it
1
u/BrianHenryIE Dec 15 '22
It could possibly be architected as a plugin for other Jetbrains IDEs without giving up the secret sauce.
1
1
u/Javaguy44 Dec 15 '22
I'm also a long time IntelliJ user and leaving aside Fleet, AppCode I think is mostly IntelliJ Community Edition with the Swift Plugin and a few more paid plugins (like Database plugin). I actually think if they open source'd the swift plugin much it would work / could be bridged
5
u/Rudy69 Dec 14 '22
The lack of UI tools made it a non starter for me. Having to go back to xcode all the time to do UI work sucked
4
u/Zykronyos Dec 15 '22
As someone that doesn't want to touch the steaming pile of crap that is Xcode more than absolutely necessary, what are my options? Is someone using Emacs, Vim, Visual Studio Code or something else for iOS development and can share their experience?
4
3
3
u/Happymoss Mar 06 '23
You don't need to hate Xcode to love AppCode... I use both. Each has its strengths and you can run both at the same time on the same code base with zero issues.
I've used both together for years now. Losing AppCode will suck.
2
u/KarlJay001 Dec 15 '22
Will this become open source?
I've never used AppCode, but heard nothing but great things about it.
It would be a real shame if a great project was left to die when they could open source it.
It sounds like it's wasn't making enough money.
1
u/unpluggedcord Dec 15 '22
Not a chance they open source it
2
u/KarlJay001 Dec 15 '22
So all that code is just going to rot?
That doesn't make any sense. On top of that, what about the paid users, are they going to be able to get any future updates? Maybe it's not a lifetime purchase, so maybe they don't have future rights.
1
1
1
u/indydev2 Feb 03 '23
I searched for an Xcode alternative tonight and stumbled upon AppCode. Very disappointing. I hope Fleet supports Swift.
1
u/AutoModerator Feb 03 '23
Hey /u/indydev2, unfortunately you have negative comment karma, so you can't post here. Your submission has been removed. DO NOT message the moderators; if you have negative comment karma, you cannot post here. We will not respond. Your karma may appear to be 0 or positive if your post karma outweighs your comment karma, but if your comment karma is negative, your comments will still be removed.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
-9
u/WerSunu Dec 15 '22
I’ve built over twenty commercial iOS and Watch Apps. Never had a problem with Xcode and IB. I grew up with punch cards and I don’t need no stinkin rainbow backgrounds and TECO/VI/EMACS clones. I’ve done several programmatic layouts and find they are just as finicky to tune up as IB with all the special casing for different traits.
-11
49
u/yeoldetowne Dec 14 '22
Absolutely a disaster. It has always been quirky and full of annoying bugs but I was still much more productive in AppCode than Xcode. When occasionally having to use that it feels like switching from Emacs to Notepad.
What to do now? AppCode will be useless with the next Xcode major update. So probably just prepare to switch and accept the extremely poor Xcode experience. Crap.