Xcode now costs US$ 4.99 • Hacker News Board

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#351

Post by albertsun » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:10 AM UTC

masklinn wrote: post #198

ori_b wrote: post #15

This is somewhat strange pricing - it seems ridiculously cheap if they're trying to make significant profits off of it, but pricey enough to prevent tinkerers who don't really know about coding but feel like trying it from getting a start in xcode.

According to the LLVM lead dev (Chris Lattner on IRC), this is due to Apple's accountant's interpretation of SOX (Xcode 4 is too different from Xcode 3 to be considered an update, they see it as a new product): > it is due to some bizarro accounting rule. xcode4 is sufficiently new that it doesn't count as a free update or something. paid adc members should get free access. yeah, clearly we're trying to monetize it..…

Which part of SOX requires this?

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#352

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:13 AM UTC

nitrogen wrote: post #278

mechanical_fish wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love emacs and use it every day. And I'm glad that it's free software. But if Apple offered to keep my Mac's emacs install up to date for $4.99 I would pay in a heartbeat. I have to periodically check whether my version is out of date. When it is, I have to find the download URL, click on it, remember to come back when the package has downloaded, and run the installer. I have to do this on all of my machines. Sure,…

Just curious, I'm assuming that switching to Linux to get automatic updates for all packages would cost you more than $5 in pain in other areas. Is that assumption correct?

I use both Linux and Mac and I can assure you the Mac side is not completely painless. I prefer Linux for work, but, then, I don't develop for Macs.

It's, of course, next to impossible to develop Mac software without a Mac and, since we are talking about Xcode, access to a modern Mac is a necessary condition.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#353

Post by ghaff » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:14 AM UTC

montagg wrote: post #328

kjksf wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you really saying that you can't afford to pay $5 from your own pocket for XCode 4? What price, other than $0, would be acceptable for a tool that took years of effort by a team of programmers and cost Apple tens of millions in programmer's salaries to develop?

It's just better business to make the price $0. $5 doesn't seem expensive. It just seems... odd.

Bingo. It throws an obstacle (however small) in front of one of your most important assets, a huge developer community, for minimal gain. It would be one thing if Apple, rightly or wrongly, decided that developers had to be commit to a $XXX/yr developer program. It's another to just say that developers on the current version of tools have to throw in some trivial amount given that seems to affect tire kicking levels more than revenues.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#354

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:19 AM UTC

msbarnett wrote: post #154

msg wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the difference between free and not free. They are trying to drive developers to use the App Store? Sounds ridiculous coming out of my mouth. They are trying to kill off OSX hobbyist experimentation in favor of iOS? I think I'm getting warmer.

Is this supposed to be satire? Being a hobbyist and learning to program in the 80s meant my dad shelling out hundreds of dollars for THINK Lightspeed Pascal, and yet, somehow I and many others managed to learn to program and become hobbyists and finally professional programmers. They'll sell you a full-featured, modern IDE with all the pro features uncrippled for a measly $5 . That's not a death blow to hobbyists, th…

> with all the pro features uncrippled

Do you mean Eclipse, NetBeans or any other modern, professional IDE is crippled?

This is a death blow to Apple hobbyists who live in parts of the world that don't have access to the Mac App Store.

All three of them, most probably.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#355

Post by akashs » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:26 AM UTC

A1kmm wrote: post #231

I'm an academic who develops Free / Open Source software and distributes libraries and binaries for the Windows, x86 and x86_64 Linux and Mac platforms along with the source. One important library generates C code based on a domain specific language, links a shared object and uses that; on Windows and Linux, we ship a cut back gcc and libtools to do that; libtools doesn't work on the Mac (at least last time I looked…

I could be wrong, but it sounds like the developer program is free for universities, and xcode is supposed to come free with that.

http://developer.apple.com/programs/ios/university/

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#356

Post by goalieca » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:32 AM UTC

j_baker wrote: post #337

goalieca wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gcc/clang are completely open source. In fact, the ones online are far more recent versions than what apple has been shipping. I believe apple still ships gcc42 as of the last free xcode.

Are there really that many compelling additions to gcc since then? This is a serious question, not a rhetorical one.

the optimizers are significantly better, enhanced profiling, standards compliance more strict, c++0x additions, and improved compile times.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#357

Post by taylorbuley » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:33 AM UTC

Tichy wrote: post #135

taylorbuley wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My opinion is that it's just another "hidden fee" for OS X development. (A fee I'm happy to pay, for what it's worth.) For me, I actually had to get a Mac before I could even think about writing my first iPhone app. Then I found out my 10.5 Mac Mini wasn't compatible with XCode, so I had to fork over a bit to pick up Leopard. Then comes the $100 or whatever for a developer license so you can build on phone. After all…

Seems the conditioning they put you through worked well. In fact seen in that light, the new fee makes sense. They just want to dull your resistance against paying through the nose.

Must.. pay.. another... $100

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5092/5513444433_fd70db527e.jp...

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#358

Post by goalieca » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:35 AM UTC

joshfraser wrote: post #58

Seeing this reminded me of a Microsoft focus group I was invited to be a part of a few years ago. As a CTO who had decided to build everyone on top of free software, they wanted to know what it take to make me to switch to a Microsoft stack. I told them they were 10 years too late. You see, I made the decision to use LAMP stack not because it was cheaper, but because it's what I knew. And the reason I knew LAMP stack…

teenagers dont often have credit cards.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#359

Post by earino » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:38 AM UTC

pyre wrote: post #332

jarin wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially when a sense of entitlement is free! You can get Visa gift cards at the convenience store for $10. If a teenager can't find the motivation to scrounge up 10 bucks, they're going to have a hell of a time learning how to program.

Are you sure that this: You can get Visa gift cards at the convenience store for $10. Applies everywhere in the world? Or is it only people in certain countries that matter?

Only people in certain countries matter. Most of the world just pirates software.

Re: Xcode now costs US$ 4.99

#360

Post by jedsmith » Thu, Mar 10, 2011, 3:39 AM UTC

albertsun wrote: post #351

masklinn wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the LLVM lead dev (Chris Lattner on IRC), this is due to Apple's accountant's interpretation of SOX (Xcode 4 is too different from Xcode 3 to be considered an update, they see it as a new product): > it is due to some bizarro accounting rule. xcode4 is sufficiently new that it doesn't count as a free update or something. paid adc members should get free access. yeah, clearly we're trying to monetize it..…

Which part of SOX requires this?

The great thing about Sarbanes-Oxley is that it is large enough to get away with blaming everything on it. Oh, you can say, my accounting team says Sarbanes-Oxley requires this 40% markup. Then if anybody actually calls you on it, you can refer them to their lawyer, who will charge them $15,000 to research the question. Since they can't read it either, they'll give you a maybe.

The real amusement to the law degrees, I'm sure, is that Sarbanes-Oxley doesn't really do anything and it's just a scare word, like Communism.

/s

All kidding aside, just look at that lead-in on Wikipedia. I needed a shot at the end of that, and that's not even a section. I'm curious why this would be the case myself, and I'm still looking, a couple hours later. On a Wednesday night.