<story><title>Xcode now costs US$ 4.99</title><url>http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id422352214</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>msg</author><text>It is the difference between free and not free.&lt;p&gt;They are trying to drive developers to use the App Store? Sounds ridiculous coming out of my mouth.&lt;p&gt;They are trying to kill off OSX hobbyist experimentation in favor of iOS? I think I&apos;m getting warmer.</text></item><item><author>ori_b</author><text>This is somewhat strange pricing - it seems ridiculously cheap if they&apos;re trying to make significant profits off of it, but pricey enough to prevent tinkerers who don&apos;t really know about coding but feel like trying it from getting a start in xcode.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>msbarnett</author><text>Is this supposed to be satire?&lt;p&gt;Being a hobbyist and learning to program in the 80s meant my dad shelling out hundreds of dollars for THINK Lightspeed Pascal, and yet, somehow I and many others managed to learn to program and become hobbyists and finally professional programmers.&lt;p&gt;They&apos;ll sell you a full-featured, modern IDE with all the pro features uncrippled for a measly &lt;i&gt;$5&lt;/i&gt;. That&apos;s not a death blow to hobbyists, that&apos;s maybe one of the cheapest hobbies on the planet.</text></comment>
<story><title>Xcode now costs US$ 4.99</title><url>http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xcode/id422352214</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>msg</author><text>It is the difference between free and not free.&lt;p&gt;They are trying to drive developers to use the App Store? Sounds ridiculous coming out of my mouth.&lt;p&gt;They are trying to kill off OSX hobbyist experimentation in favor of iOS? I think I&apos;m getting warmer.</text></item><item><author>ori_b</author><text>This is somewhat strange pricing - it seems ridiculously cheap if they&apos;re trying to make significant profits off of it, but pricey enough to prevent tinkerers who don&apos;t really know about coding but feel like trying it from getting a start in xcode.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stuhacking</author><text>Apple are really driving me to put Linux on both my machines.&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m not happy about that, but it&apos;s seems ever more likely since Linux is getting a lot more usable and the Apple tax is getting a lot more expensive.</text></comment>