Personal view on the Xcode issue is this part of your comment:

> lock people into your ecosystem

There's no real alternative to Xcode, if you're going to develop for Apple, you pretty much just have to take the dive, buy Apple hardware, and use Xcode. You don't really know what you're getting into before you get there, and by then you've got sunk cost and just have to trudge through. Somebody a while back had a comment that kind of epitomized it (paraphrased from bad memory): "I thought I was their target customer. I'm not. I'm not sure who their target customer is. Who is this even written for?"

_mlxl had a pretty funny one from 4 years ago also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26932848

  > (...) I think its left a little bit of taint on my soul. It is unfathomably bad.  Apple keep bolting stuff on to it.  It's slow, broken in numerous ways, depends on file formats that aren't used anywhere outside of Apple and completely undocumented. It is such a painful tool to use.

Had a comment on another thread's Switch 2 development complaints, re. the few I have tried - Nintendo, Steam, and Google.

Nintendo - The process itself is opaque, confusing, and difficult to determine your status or progress, even large companies have difficulty.

Steam - Signing up and putting launch title info was difficult, yet Wayyyyy easier and clearer to navigate. Tools are kind of a mess, and figuring out everything you need is a challenge. (comments on the SDK are at least funny sometimes)

  // This is really, really bad.  We're sorry.  But it's been this way for
  // a long time now and it's scary to change it, as there may be others that
  // depend on it.

  // Recommended amount
  // Quite a bit
  // Practically everything
  // Wall of text, detailed packet contents breakdown, etc

  /* Prefer user version of the interface.  But if it isn't found, then use gameserver one.  Yes, this is a completely terrible hack */

  // This totally sucks, but this information can't be gleaned any
  // other way
  // (200 lines later) actually no way to do this yet.

  // um, yeah, clipping is enabled (?)
  // (500 lines later) ???? is clipping ever turned off ??

  // hush for now, less spew

  Nintendo "How do I even sign up?" Steam "Great, signed up, how do I release something?" Google "Easy sign-up, somewhat easy release of products, eventually got three out the door. Your products have been removed for (mumble mumble legalese)"