andyvanee

From Command-line to XCode

I’m a command-line guy at heart when it comes to programming. It seems much more organic to know what every project file is doing and how each one contributes to the whole. Which files might break things, which files are optional and which files can be refactored or optimized.

“The Pragmatic Programmer” challenged this notion. They recommend diversity. If you only know and IDE, try command-line and if you know command-line, try an IDE. At first I was skeptical of this advice. I’ve come to know my command-line toolset fairly well, and IDE’s feel like they add too much baggage and inflexibility. I’ve built Xcode projects before, and there is a lot of behind the scenes voodoo attached to the projects.

But, after pushing through my initial concerns, I’ve come to really enjoy using Xcode for my projects. Here are some command-line programmer concerns, and how to alleviate them in Xcode. Some may be obvious to those who are at home in their IDE, but they weren’t to me.

All in all, I’ve really enjoyed programming in Xcode. It does take a small investment of time and imagination to build custom projects, but I think it’s worth it.