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Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

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Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#211

Post by collinvandyck76 »

nerdsniper wrote: post #196
dwaite wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xcode’s file associations are super aggressive. They are the same Info.plist format as every other MacOS application.

Something is different. Right Click->Open With->Other->Always Open With 100% did not have any effect when I needed it in the past. Not sure what current behavior is. This was a huge thing for me.

I have noticed something similar. I feel like I have done that so many times for XML files. Perhaps it is re-establishing the settings when any kind of update gets installed.

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#212

Post by Insanity »

someguyiguess wrote: post #197
aniforprez wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a time I was interested in building for MacOS. Installing, opening and trying to use Xcode killed that pretty quick. I've never seen an IDE this behind in terms of usability from the competition.

Same experience. The 2009 version of Eclipse was more stable than modern XCode. And that’s saying something.

Oh that’s a flash from the past. For what it’s worth, Eclipse was a better experience for me than Netbeans..

Nowadays all my development work happens in vim and I’ve happily not opened an editor like IntelliJ or VS Code in 5+ years.

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#213

Post by zen928 »

timtimmy wrote: post #128
spacedcowboy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sitting here struggling to think of why the hell you need a terminal emulator in an IDE. There's a perfectly good terminal emulator called Terminal.app, it's usually the first thing I put on my dock after a fresh install of MacOS. I like the terminal, but ... in an IDE ? I always wondered why Eclipse had one as well - it just seems like a wasted pane ? Perhaps it's just the setup you (the generic "you") are used…

Even with IDEs that have a terminal view, I still much prefer using a separate terminal app.

Why? It seems pretty pointless to keep hot memory of the context of every app and tab you have open as to recall what process and tab and window ties to what thing you were doing at what time, when it's effectively all one related workflow inside your Integrated* Development Environment. Do you just keep a separate dedicated tab in your terminal for actions you would only do against a single directory?

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#214

Post by Nystik »

aniforprez wrote: post #145
cyrusradfar wrote: post #130

OT: Rant Xcode being loaded on my computer causes something akin to a kernel panic. Not the fun kind where you get to read a backtrace and feel something. The existential kind. Every time it hijacks a .json or .xml file association, I experience a rage that hasn't been matched since the Emacs/vi wars ... and at least those were about editors that could open in under a geological epoch. I just want to look at a text f…

There was a time I was interested in building for MacOS. Installing, opening and trying to use Xcode killed that pretty quick. I've never seen an IDE this behind in terms of usability from the competition.

As someone who has to use xcode from time to time to maintain a number of apps for work. It is my absolute least favourite IDE. Its such a bad experience.

I prefer writing in vscode instead and only using xcode to compile and debug.

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#216

Post by vor_ »

periodjet wrote: post #111
bigstrat2003 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> AI is a key part of software engineering now. It most certainly is not, lol. That's the hype that the parent was referring to. Most people have found AI to be a detriment, not a benefit, to their work.

You’d have to be deeply ensconced in a particular kind of bubble to hold this belief.

Speaking of bubbles...

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#217

Post by int_19h »

gedbnfnc wrote: post #198
spacedcowboy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sitting here struggling to think of why the hell you need a terminal emulator in an IDE. There's a perfectly good terminal emulator called Terminal.app, it's usually the first thing I put on my dock after a fresh install of MacOS. I like the terminal, but ... in an IDE ? I always wondered why Eclipse had one as well - it just seems like a wasted pane ? Perhaps it's just the setup you (the generic "you") are used…

This is a standard feature in every IDE that’s ever been invented. It’s not useful for every workflow, but there’s lots of times that you’re doing something where the console or the debugger is not available or isn’t convenient and being able to have a terminal right there is so useful. If it doesn’t make sense for your workflow, then don’t bring it up, but given how many developers expect us as table stakes it’s a d…

> This is a standard feature in every IDE that’s ever been invented.

You should be careful making such statements to an audience in which many have been around when IDEs were invented.

It's certainly a useful thing to have, and yes, these days many IDEs do have it. But Xcode itself is from the time long before that feature became the default. And, unfortunately, it is mostly still stuck there.

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#218

Post by lynndotpy »

Aloisius wrote: post #200
lynndotpy wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1200ms was an estimation, but it's definitely closer to 1200ms than it is for 250ms for me. There's definitely a difference in set up here- I'm on a Macbook Pro with an M1 Pro chip. From a screen recording, I count 53 screen-recorded frames from the apparent start of the animation (which occurs after it's invoked) to desktop widgets becoming transparent (which appears to be the point input is no longer blocked).…

I'm also on a M1 Macbook Pro, running Tahoe 26.2. Not sure why yours is so much slower than mine. Mine is definitely 250 ms long or 15 frames from the time I hit the shortcut. I used the onscreen keyboard viewer to get visual feedback when the shortcut was pressed and recorded audio so I could hear it being pressed. I even recorded it a second time using OBS to ensure I was at 60 fps and trimmed the whole segment dow…

You might not be aware of this, but you are in possession of a secret treasure that many MacOS users desperately want!

There is some input display on Macbook Pros, but that'd account for easily I tried changing screen resolution, quitting apps like Rectangle, etc. No dice.

In digging more deeply than I had before, I did find some things which were rumored to speed it up. Disabling multi-color preview, and disabling "displays have separate spaces". (I am using only one display). This shaves off some time (taking about 950ms)! (!!!)

There is also a four-finger gesture which, if done fast enough, appears to speed things up. But it's difficult to reproduce and often "overshoots" to other spaces.

I have a few questions, if you'd oblige:

- Are you also using ProMotion (120hz)? (The biggest thing I can find to speed this up is switching to 60hz, but this does not quite get to 250ms).

- Are you also switching using ctrl+arrowkey(left/right)? (Ctrl+number is notably faster, but not what I'm looking for.)

- Were you using MacOS before this M1 Pro? (This is my first MacOS machine, I'm wondering if there might be some hidden configuration carried over from a previous install with faster transitions).

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#219

Post by vor_ »

briandw wrote: post #26
flohofwoe wrote: post #13

Building castles in the sky while the foundation is rotting away :/ Xcode really needs a couple of years of pure bugfix and optimization releases instead of hype-chasing.

True that Xcode needs yet another rebuild from scratch. If they forked it and abandoned the old project file and went with a swift first approach, could work. However adding support for Claude is still a huge win. Could lead the way to making the transition to a sane IDE possible / reasonable. This would require leadership that’s completely absent at the company.

Why would being "swift first" affect anything? Why do you assume Xcode isn't already full of Swift code?

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#220

Post by tom_ »

allthetime wrote: post #45
flohofwoe wrote: post #13

Building castles in the sky while the foundation is rotting away :/ Xcode really needs a couple of years of pure bugfix and optimization releases instead of hype-chasing.

Honest question. I've been using XCode for 10 years. For me, it's only improved and I don't have any real pain points. They are definitely fixing bugs. I make software for iOS, macOS, car play, and apple watch. Sure sometimes I've got to reset or clear a cache, but this has never stopped my day. What is so horrible about XCode?

Inflexible window layout. (For example, suppose you want to see breakpoints list, call stack, and find results simultaneously. You can't, as they all share the same panel. Which is always on the left of the window.)
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