X-Code Scorecard

I’m in the process of converting our app from CodeWarrior to X-Code. X-Code is Apple’s IDE based on the GNU toolset.

Good things about X-Code (most of these things are good in CodeWarrior already):

• Recursive include directories work.
• Precompiled headers work reasonably well.
• Manages dependencies, more or less.
• Easy to temporarily preprocess and view a file.
• Targets and build configurations are separate - this is an improvement over CodeWarrior.
• View-by-groups is a nice way to work.

Bad things about X-Code (mostly inheritted from GCC):

• Compile speed is significantly slower than CodeWarrior.
• Dependency checker sometimes goes haywire and recompiles the PCH - at that point go get a cup of coffee.
• GNU STL - enough said.
• No per-group compile settings - too bad given the flexibility of the rest of the system. You can’t do this in CodeWarrior but you can do this in VC.net.

If you tried X-Code a few years ago when it first came out, it’s definitely in better shape now. But I’d trade all of the features not found in CodeWarrior to get my compile speed back!