I really think there is something wrong with your computer. I have a Dual 2.0GHz G5 and, while it's getting comparatively slower every month, it's far from the spinning beachball scenario you describe. It's still pretty peppy for everyday development.

At least until the new machines come out, you will probably find your live improved by reinstalling your OS and development tools. I don't think most people are suffering as badly as you are.

I agree with Daniel, your machine sounds like it's hosed. I have a dual 2.7GHz G5, as well as a MacBook Pro. Both have 2GB of RAM. The dual G5 is faster than the MBP. The MBP is of course a heck of a nice update from my Powerbook, but still, the G5 is fastest. Also, if you happen to have multiple machines, do use the Xcode distributed build stuff. It's nowhere near as good as Xoreax IncrediBuild on the PC, but it definitely helps (depending on how big/long your builds are).

it's weird

xcode is not so slow on a dual G5.

the dual G5 was not a "slow" machine at its time.

the real disaster was ibm was not able to give a clear roadmap and a new mobile ppc.

Ok, So I don't have any of that dual proc G5 goodness. My main development machine was a Imac 2.1GHz until about a month ago.

Then I purchased a shiny new MBP... For most things there wasn't a big difference but xcode was, like, amazing... it felt about 3-5x faster

Hopefully some new towers are coming with WWDC

-jm

Well, Path Finder is a *huge* project, containing more than 30 frameworks, and I didn't count how many .xcodeprojects in a rather complex structure. Our svn repository contains more than 300 Mb of code. Just to open the main project on my ok, humble, PowerBook 1.5Ghz '12 takes at least one minute, with constant beachballing. I think that some of considerable slow downs during just typing is due to the syntax completion, which should be aware of the huge number of methods in every project.

Well I can't say anything against such an advanced coder but I am very happy with my Quad G5 right now.

Why you blame PowerPC for Xcode spin?

If the "Xcode" project wasn't a commercial , huge success Path Finder which is naturally closed source... We could arrange a Quad G5 Xcode test I think.

As end user I have serious suspicion/paranoia about Apple's late "Intel Fanboy" era but I better don't get into theories.

Just a note: Skype made a deal with Intel to simply support more CPU specific features than AMD CPUs. I even know as total end user who never developed anything what happens if you use GCC flags wrong way.

Yes, with such paranoia I still bought the Quad G5. Apologies, I won't use CISC in 2006... I had enough with x86 between 1994-2003. I always used top of the line machines and configurations too. I am one of rare guys who bought RDRAM (Rambus) based P4.

I've used Project Builder/XCode on various machines, from dual 733 (or was it 700?) MHz G4s up through dual 2.0 GHz G5s, and now on an Intel iMac.

XCode is, relatively speaking, a slow environment to work in. And, it gets exponentially more slow the larger the project and the larger the individual file you are opening. Opening large source code files in a large project can and will bring XCode to its knees.

That having been said, I do have to say that XCode 2.3 running on the iMac is an absolute dream. It's significantly, noticably faster than the dual G5, and absolute night-and-day from the G4 AlBook I use for everyday coding.

Also, compile times are *significantly* faster using gcc/Intel instead of gcc/ppc (not *compiling* Intel code, but just *running* on Intel code). Compiling a native app of my project takes about 30 minutes on the AlBook (PPC G4 at 1.5GHz), which is about the same that it took on a dual-1.42GHz G4 desktop. It takes about 6 minutes, soup to nuts, on the iMac. That's a 5x improvement!

So, yes, be skeptical of "Intel fanboys". But, like it or not, developers really should be moving to Intel-based hardware. It's just too painful to continue working on PPC these days.

BTW, had I not just bought this laptop early last year I'd already have a new MacBook Pro. But, alas, I bought the AlBook as the initial Intel rumors were just starting to surface last year, so I'm stuck with this one for about six more months before hitting the minimum acceptable lifetime in our corporation. Still, that means I'll likely be getting a Gen 2 Intel MacBook, which was the original idea anyways.

The G5 is hardly slow. From many benchmarks you can find through search engines, the G5 is always 2-3 times faster then even the MacBook Pro with it's 2.16GHz Intel Core Duo. The main increase in speed from the Duo comes from the increased L2 cache per chip. The other increases could be to do with x86 specific extensions such as VT-X and SSE3, which in some cases beat Altivec. SSE is a math library, but it does give quite a bit of pep to large integer operations. The RISC design has and always will be better, but the amounts of money Intel has put into its processor monopoly cannot be beaten considering IBM's main financial roadmap never involved making inroads in the mobile computing sector with the Power chips. The G6 and the currently existant eight-core UltraSPARC will not be beaten by the Quad Core Intel or any Opteron. Intel and AMD aim at the low-end of the spectrum, meaning commodity non-mission critical systems. You won't find many Intels running large clusters.

For high end, keep your fingers out of the Intel pie unless you must have a laptop for video production or mobile development purposes. The G4 I admit was pretty wimpy, but that doesn't mean the Cell processor or server-line G6 does. Sorry to be a bit radical, but all of the G5's I've used don't give up a fight without a lot of effort on my part to purposely slow them down. This is coming from a guy which can literally take down the best Sager, Dell XPS, Voodoo, or MacBook Pro with his arsenal of games and benchmarks and general usage.

I honestly thought the original post was a great piece of satire at first. Then I realized it was serious.

There has to be something wrong with your machine.

I mean, my main machine is a dual-800 G4 from 2001. And it's certainly pokey, but not to the point I can't stand it--it's still quite reliable, and rarely do I think "I *need* a new machine." (My 500 MHz TiBook, on the other hand, takes a good 10 minutes to launch InDesign, and is very nearly unusable for anything productive).

Two key things will affect your system performance and often get overlooked:
* the amount of memory you have - 1gb for good normal OSX use, 2gb or more if you really work it.
* the speed and setup of your drives - 7200rpm drives are faster than 5400rpm and are faster then 4200rpm, so older laptops with 4200rpm drives will *always* run like treacle. Also, if you have OSX's built-in RAID configured up in your system then it will run *slower* than without due to the fact that all of the RAID'ing is done by your CPU rather than an onboard card.
So make sure you have plenty of RAM and a fast hard-drive (WD Raptors are still king) and you'll be flying.

I'll take that Quad G5 off your hands if you don't want it

400mhz B&W G3/712mb/Tiger. I await your G5 models on discount in a few years, as I did for this one.

I still crash brand new Windows machines when I over-task the system doing the same things as I do on my G3.

But my new job has the full G3-G5 set, one of each. Eventually I may figure out my computer's slower than theirs.. but for now, saving up for maxing it out with the 1Ghz/1 GB upgrade.

Sorry you suffer so. I would like Altivec, though.

Did your system slow down at some time? Mine did. I've wondered whether it was an upgrade to the OS. (I always do the upgrades that Apple suggests.) Another thing I thought of was QuickSilver, which I was running in the rawest alpha form.

I removed QuickSilver, and things seem a lot better now.

Food for thought or discussion.