With Leopard coming out in a few months, is it really worth the trouble of learning Xcode 2, or should I just wait until Leopard and start off with Xcode 3? Or will the two be similar enough where I should just dive in now?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
macOS Is it worth trying to learn Xcode 2 at this point?
- Thread starter ghall
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I know nothing about coding, but if there is a bog difference between the two, i would wait.
Learn Xcode 2 because Xcode 3 is the same thing with more frameworks and stuff. It all works the same.
XCode 3, in my opinion, seems to take out some of the functionality that you had wiwth XCode 2, for example, instead of creating a header class within Interface builder, you make it yourself, add the specific that you want, then link it in Interface builder, IB won't make the files for you, you have to and decide where they link up to. The interface has been completely changed, and you'll see that in Leopard. In short, it's always useful to know the previous versions before the newer versions. It's like with Windows 95 to 98, I noticed a lot of differences, but if I would have went to 98 down to 95, I would have been asking, where's this at? Why isn't this here? So if you learn about what you have then look at the new features, it makes it easier to cross-over to one another.
So in short, I should just jump in and learn Xcode 2, then catch up with Xcode 3?
I can't see any reason to wait. Sure there will be some changes, but they will be evolutionary, not revolutionary. You'll just be learning allong with the rest of the developers when Xcode 3 comes out.
As a fairly heavy XCode (2) user, there's nothing in what I've seen in XCode 3 that makes me think it's going to be radically different. There are a bunch of things that I think are going to be really nice, but nothing that makes me think I'm going to really have to relearn anything, just new features.
As for the comments regarding making header files manually vs. in Interface Builder, I always make header files manually anyway, as I find it easier and faster than trying to use IB to deal with them. So that's not a change for me anyway. Besides, IB is only used for adding outlets and actions to classes, not for adding hard-coded instance and class variables which you've always had to do manually. If you can add instance and class variables manually, you can certainly add IBOutlets and IBActions manually.
As for the comments regarding making header files manually vs. in Interface Builder, I always make header files manually anyway, as I find it easier and faster than trying to use IB to deal with them. So that's not a change for me anyway. Besides, IB is only used for adding outlets and actions to classes, not for adding hard-coded instance and class variables which you've always had to do manually. If you can add instance and class variables manually, you can certainly add IBOutlets and IBActions manually.
You certainly can, I do it all the time like that. You then use "read AppController.h" to get it back into Interface Builder.
Also definitely learning Xcode 2 now has a point, I think Xcode 3 looks very cool, but it isn't going to take anything away.
Also learning Xcode 3 will probably be better with a new version of the books, which will take a fair while to come out so learning Xcode 2 is probably more sensible
.