Feature Request: iPhone/Cocoa Support
Hi,
I know it sounds absolutely weird, but I'd love to develop my iPhone apps with IDEA. Hmm, maybe it doesn't sound so weird after all. Yeah, people keep telling us about how cool Xcode is... yaaaaaaawn. They've never seen us working with IDEA.
Hey, somebody wants to investigate whether there is a possibility to support Objective-C and the related APIs? Branch off another product just like RubyMine? I'd be the first to buy such a product.
Dreaming....
-tom
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+1
I agree totally. Xcode is ok, but it's a joke compared to IntelliJ and the Cocoa people just don't know what they are talking about when they are raving about how good Xcode is.
/ET
Listen to today's JavaPosse interview with Dmitry and Roman, around the 7 minute mark:
"We are also working on an IDE for ... Objective-C"
Yay!
OMG! You're right! Fantastic news! I can't count all the times I've been thinking that I would give anything to develop Objective-C with IntelliJ instead of Xcode.
/ET
*bump*
Any news or rumors about a possible Jetbrains Objective-C/Cocoa/Cocoa Touch IDE? The more I use Xcode, the more it hurts and I can't count the number of times a day I dream of an IntelliJ-like experience. Xcode is pathetic. How many engineers do Apple have compared to Jetbrains? Only people who are used to the gcc toolchain and C and C++ in general, could think that Xcode is a modern way to develop software.
Even if things like LLVM might improve the situation technically, it still doesn't address the more serious issue, the seeming lack of understanding and appreciation of modern software engineering within and around the Apple community. How else is it possible to explain the state of unit testing in Xcode? The debugger? Refactoring support? (In the latest beta version of Xcode, almost the only refactoring Apple provides is renaming and it's even incredibly stupid and almost useless). Where are the great static analysis tools? Etc etc.
Maybe I'm asking too much out of a tool that almost can't do completion ...
The most fascinating thing is how useless Xcode is in regards to the user experience, otherwise a traditional strength of Apple. Useless keyboard shortcuts (and often no shortcuts at all). Click on something and lots of windows pop up (with the exact same information as the first window ... ) Lots of different ways to do the same thing, but often with different names.
On it's best days, Xcode is maybe on par with Eclipse, but that's -- as all IntelliJ users know -- really not enough.
Jetbrains, if you made an Mac/iPhone IDE, I would purchase it immediately, almost regardless of cost.
/ET
PS. Sorry for the ranting, but I had to vent a little ...
I'm also very excited about the news of Jetbrains Objective-C IDE! The question is if Apple will allow to use other tool than XCode to develop iPhone apps... Do anybody knows the release date?
Hello Lukasz,
At the moment there are no restrictions on the tools used to develop an app,
and there's no way for Apple to determine which IDE or text editor was used
to write the code of an app.
The project is at a very early stage and we ourselves have no idea about
the release date.
--
Dmitry Jemerov
Development Lead
JetBrains, Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com/
"Develop with Pleasure!"
Dmitry Jemerov wrote:
>> I'm also very excited about the news of Jetbrains Objective-C IDE! The
>> question is if Apple will allow to use other tool than XCode to
>> develop iPhone apps...
>> Do anybody knows the release date?
Apple doesn't seem to think so :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8616274.stm
Mind you it may well be that Adobe's software compiles down to an app
directly rather than generating source, and it's that which they can detect.
Anyway, very much looking forward to an Objective-C IDE from Jetbrains too!
N.
+1 for me too - can't wait to see / use this!
I'd love to be an alpha / beta / whatever tester
Cheers,
Stuart Carnie, CTO
manomio | in retro we trust!
iPhone games: C64 for iPhone, Flashback: Quest for Identity
iPhone demos: Amiga for iPhone Tech Demo, Atari 2600 for iPhone Tech Demo
Anyone that says that XCode is a good IDE probably doesn't know any better because they probably haven't used anything else. The only people that must like XCode are the people that are strictly Obj-C developers and haven't used anything else. Because XCode is absolutely horrible. I think Java IDE's just have us spoiled; however, there is no reason a developer shouldn't be spoiled by their IDE!
XCode makes me type stuff that I shouldn't have too. I put together this wishlist/complaints when I was doing an iPhone demo. I am sure there are plenty others, just jotted these few down:
1) It has no VI key bindings, this slows me down more than anything. I don’t want to use the mouse to move code around. Please let me keep my fingers on home row, VI accomplishes this; at least give me h,j,k,l navigation and yy, dd, and p.
2) It should auto-import header files, why bother me with this? Just do it.
3) Why do I have to wait until compile time before XCode tells me a header file is missing and it can’t find a class? It can see that at the time I am writing the code.
4) When I type a method signature in my header file, please just stub it out for me in the implementation file.
5) If I declare a property in the header file, please just synthesize it in the implementation file.
6) If I reference a member variable I haven't declared yet please offer to add it to the header file for me.
7) If I add a method to my class please add its signature to the header file for me (vice-versa of #4)
This would be tremendous. I think the biggest obstacle to really getting into iPhone development for me is having to use Xcode. This is less a hit on Xcode and more just a matter of being unwilling to use anything less than IntelliJ Idea. I've owned my own license through four jobs and about ten years so as to avoid ever having to change to a company standard (mind you, I've converted most ever place that was using something else to Idea in the process).
My next biggest hits have been the Objective-C language (boy was it impressive for 20 years ago, but...) and getting my head around Interface Builder. But if I had Idea at my side, I think I could pull it off.
So good luck and godspeed with the project. We're all rooting for you/it!
--Tim
As I wrote earlier in the thread, I totally agree with you. Xcode is really bad at lots of really simple things.
If my understanding is correct about some of the things you highlight, then the reason is gcc. Apple have a really hard time doing stuff that we Java developers take for granted nowadays. I think some of these problems will be taken care of when their LLVM and Clang stuff matures.
But my conclusion is that most of the horrible behaviour of Xcode is due to it being made by and for developers who are traditional C people. When all you had before was autoconf and gcc, then Xcode must seem like magic. Look at how Apple thinks you should do unit testing for example. They have bundled a unit testing framework (written by other people) with Xcode. The tests run when you do a build (compile). There's no "run" for the tests. You can't debug the tests when developing for the iPhone (at least not out of the box). You have to do lots of NSLog output to the console if you have a failing test and want to understand what's going on.
To me, this maybe makes sense if you're coming from the C world. If it compiles, it works. But for a Java person it's just insane.
It's not all bad with Xcode. I think LLVM and Clang looks very very promising. In time they might be able to do really impressive stuff. Impressive even by IntelliJ standards. Already "Build & Analyze" in Xcode (when using the Clang compiler) is really interesting. Like a cross between javac and Findbugs.
If Jetbrains could combine their knowledge of building world class IDEs with the LLVM and Clang compiler, they might do really cool stuff. There should be a place for this even if Apple has 100% market share right now.
/ET
I don't know if it makes any difference, but I've added this feature request to YouTRACK:
IDEA-54873 iPhone app development
While we're waiting for the JetBrains iPhone IDE, I've set up a feature request forum to help Apple focus on the right new Xcode features:
http://idev.uservoice.com
*bump*
Any word on where we are with this editior by jetbrains?
things have gone very quiet on this topic :(
Hello parthi,
The project is in active development right now. We don't have any further
news to announce at the moment.
--
Dmitry Jemerov
Development Lead
JetBrains, Inc.
http://www.jetbrains.com/
"Develop with Pleasure!"
As someone who moved to iOS development after 10 years of Java (and IDEA), you have no idea how excited I am about this new IDE.
Sure, Xcode is nice, and the new developer preview seems to be going in the right direction, but it's nothing compared to what IDEA could offer. I love you guys, really -- "develop with pleasure" it's not just a motto, IDEA really changed how much I enjoy programming. Take your time, I'm sure we'll see an incredible product!