Sublime Text is a highly customizable text editing solution featuring advanced API, Goto functions, and other features, from Sublime HQ in Sydney.
$80
Xcode
Score 7.1 out of 10
N/A
Xcode is an IDE used to develop, test, and distribute apps across all Apple platforms, featuring Swift and SwiftUI with a multiplatform app experience, enhanced editor features to help users code faster.
My CMS has a small window in which I can edit custom HTML/CSS. It can be expanded some, but not as much as I would like. It also displays all code as dark text on a white background. On a page where I am doing extensive custom coding, it is helpful to see it in a larger window and in a color-coded display so that I don't have to strain my eyes as hard. Especially when I'm trying to scan for specific elements and target issues and so that I don't have to scroll endlessly in a tiny window.
We are huge advocates of native iOS development and there is just real alternative when it comes to developing in Swift or Objective-C for the iPhone and iPad
In a world of free and open text editors, Sublime Text does ask for donations. You can use the product freely with only a very infrequent popup asking for donations. You can use it however long you like without paying, but it is well worth it to donate to.
People not used to the functionality may need a bit of time to get up to speed using the documentation.
An integrated terminal would be nice, but that is just a quibble. It's hard to find many cons with Sublime Text.
This is a programmers tool. As such a lot of the features and benefits are lost on a non-technical user. To get the most out of the tool you need to have a basic crash course in how it works and what it can do. The documentation and community are good, but it takes a bit of time to get up to speed.
Xcode occasionally exhibits some behaviors that are hard to explain, but are generally cleared by restarting the program. In an application this large and complex, I suppose this is somewhat expected. The sheer vastness of the frameworks collection has to be a huge management issue all by itself. However, those breaks in the flow can have impact on developer productivity.
Since we don't use the cloud based features of Xcode, it is basically available 24/7 for us. We don't need the extended compilation features that are offered in the cloud as our projects to this point have not been that large or complex. We have never seen a wholesale breakdown of Xcode availability at any point in our use of the product.
Every developer wants faster compiles, but that can be achieved by either going to the cloud or by provisioning the local station to a higher powered configuration. My only minor complaint is the amount of local mass storage that Xcode as a system consumes. This makes it interesting to set up a development environment on a midrange laptop, however it is easily managed with external storage at a reasonable price.
Never had to use their customer support before. There is ample documentation online so it's straightforward to find a solution to any problem you might encounter. For example, I needed to convert a string of HTML code to a properly formatted HTML file to "modify." Easy to do when there are so many users of the product who have needed to do that same thing before.
Sublime is more customizable and one can easily modify a lot of its features. On the contrary Visual Studio only has limited customizability features. Sublime text is also very light and not bloated as opposed to Visual Studio IDE. We also chose sublime because it has much better support for the majority of languages(especially Python) and I primarily work with python.
Xcode is the clear choice in general circumstances in Apple echosphere application development (for instance, not for Java or web programming necessarily) primarily due to the fact that it is Apple's in-house tool. It received a lot of attention and is used by a huge audience of developers. It has the advantage of being free, heavily supported by Apple, tightly tied to OS and hardware changes, and benefits from significant Apple Intelligence enhancements in the latest version.
Xcode only loses points due to the occasional situation where it manages to somehow tie itself into a knot and starts to exhibit odd symptoms. This is almost always solved by simply saving progress and restarting the environment. Fortunately, that doesn't happen too frequently and is easily repaired while taking a short break to walk around and stretch.
Xcode is free, and is supported at low cost by individual or organizational membership
There are a lot of free resources available, which is particularly important to students and independent developers
Since producing apps is not a core business function of the university, it is difficult to provide direct bottom-line tangible benefits, but frequently programming students come in with a basic understanding of Xcode already in place, which saves class time
Producing standard structured code from a standard IDE makes it easier for sharing code with peer institutions
Students expect to have university branded "helper" apps available, and Xcode makes it fairly easy to transport code from one contractor to another
No negative impacts are immediately evident other than familiarization time with the IDE can be high if you try to know what everything does
