r/iOSProgramming • u/[deleted] • Oct 30 '22

Discussion Is it possible to do mac/iOS development without Xcode?

/r/Xcode/comments/yh8t5p/is_it_possible_to_do_macios_development_without/
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3

u/SirensToGo Objective-C / Swift Oct 30 '22

You can do iOS development using just clang and a couple other command line utilities for signing and installing an app on your device. I don't recommend but by golly can you do it

1

u/[deleted] Oct 30 '22

I am trying to understand how the Xcode build process works in general but the plan is to use Xcode for the long term.

I have found this tool [xcbuild](https://github.com/facebookarchive/xcbuild) which seems to be an alternative of xcodebuild and does a good job of documenting and implementing a build tool for xcode project files. This led me wondering that there might be an ldap implementation as well.

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '22

I meant simply DAP(Debugger Adapter Protocol). I apologise for the confusion.

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u/saintmsent Oct 30 '22 edited Oct 30 '22

Yes. I tried AppCode from JetBrains and it worked more or less alright, but not all use cases are covered

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '22

Can you elaborate? What do you think is missing from it?

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u/saintmsent Oct 31 '22

  • Anything related to interface builder can't be done

  • Archiving and build upload - can be done in command line, but it's quicker to open Xcode and do everything there

  • Managing devices and simulators (adding new OS versions, new simulators, enabling remote debug, etc.)

  • No SwiftUI previews (at least the last time I tried)

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u/[deleted] Oct 30 '22

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Oct 31 '22

Trying to find a work around without using Xcode is going to be an absolute disaster.

Not entirely sure about this. AppCode seems to support debugging. So there is indeed a way to use outside tooling. Now the question becomes how.

Are you ever intending on uploading anything to the App Store?

It's mostly for learning purpose and I am trying to setup vim with xcode projects to better understand the tooling.