> using Xcode is a far superior experience to RubyMotion and any editor
Yesterday I had to convert a list of constants into mathematical operations. Took ten seconds to make the macro in vim, and then I ran it twenty times in a second. Compare with the five to ten minutes it would have taken doing option+arrow around the numbers to add characters before and after.
I've turned off all of Xcode's text editing functionality (except for esc to code complete) because it was interfering with typing instead of helping. I've tried to turn off all the "jump to error" stuff in the settings, but it still insists on jumping to the disassembly for main() when it hits an error.
XCode is not ideal for people accustomed to, say, vim. I love the static code analysis and the autocomplete and storyboards are pretty cool too. But having to edit text like a normal human instead of using vim sucks and the split pane handling is garbage. I would rather do all my dev in vim.
Because:
> you can use the editor of your choice and the terminal instead of Xcode.
This is possible with Obj-C, but using Xcode is a far superior experience to RubyMotion and any editor.
> you can use the interactive console to debug your app or to live test new code
Ditto for lldb in Xcode
> you get all the great wrapper gems like BubbleWrap which are heavily influenced by the "rails way" of doing things
There are plenty of powerful 3rd party Obj-C abstractions too.