> All software ships with bugs

But some software ships with a lot more bugs than other software does.

Xcode has all manner of funky little bugs like this; maybe not in and of themselves worth a blogrant, but Xcode also does routinely crash (every single goddam day in my experience, and that of many people I work with); it does claim unit tests passed without running them; it does corrupt the internal structure of complex projects such that you have to manually start over adding source code and resource file references; it does have many more bugs that require a significant amount of time to track down and work around -- far more than any other software package I use.

So I definitely would not begrudge any Xcode user a cathartic rant (although perhaps it's not something that belongs on the front page of HN).

(I find myself blog-raging about Xcode's horrid timesinks from time to time, too, e.g. http://masonmark.com/the-xcode-fairy/)

Xcode routinely crashes doing pretty much anything, sadly.

I don't use XCode regularly--so I honestly wouldn't know. If the rant was about that constant crashing, I wouldn't have said anything.

I think what happens is that developers see this instability all the time, and it slowly drives them to the edge, then one day a particular bug, not very important on its own, causes them to go over. If they aren't careful to realize that it's the huge history of bugs driving the rant, then it will come off looking like much ado about little.

I completely agree that this particular complaint is blown way out of proportion. But I think that's probably where it's ultimately coming from.

I agree (from personal experience and obvservation). The cumulative effect of all the little indignities a developer suffers at the hands of Xcode build up like steam in a pressure cooker, until it has to go somewhere. (A rant on a blog, a mouse hurled against a wall, chairs kicked over, whatever...)