High Sierra macOS freezing and stops
I blame strongly Apple’s inability to make developer-focused tools <i>easy</i> and <i>unbreakable</i>.<p>For instance:<p>- I <i>do not file bugs anymore</i>.  Their system is absurdly complex, requiring a lot of information up front, and is then 100% opaque.  Bugs stay marked New and <i>untouched</i> for <i>months</i> or longer, only to be closed with Duplicate or some other lame status (with absolutely no way to search or read the apparently-similar bug reports to understand the issue and resolution).  If their goal was to ensure no real participation in the process of helping their products become better, they’ve succeeded.<p>- Xcode 9.x routinely has failing background processes, even in response to explicit actions, and not just for obscure features.  For instance, an <i>ordinary build</i> seems to spawn background tasks that <i>frequently display old errors as new errors</i>, only to mysteriously produce a “Successful” build <i>while still showing all those older errors</i>; I have to Clean and Build to be absolutely sure!<p>- Xcode 9.x failures are somehow better than Xcode 8.x failures where Literally.  One.  Second.  Can.  Pass.  In.  Between.  Every.  Character.  You.  Type.  Then, SourceKit can enter an <i>unending failure loop</i>, to the point where Xcode <i>must be restarted</i> lest you have to click OK on errors every second.  And you would think I could simply move on to Xcode 9.x but I <i>can’t stop using Xcode 8.x</i> due to other developer-unfriendly decisions Apple makes, such as ending support for SDKs or changing compilers in backward-incompatible ways, where using the Xcode 8.x suite (faults and all) is unavoidable.<p>Apple is showing signs that a split into sub-companies would be useful (kind of like Claris&#x2F;FileMaker Inc.).  There’s no <i>particular</i> reason why things like bundled apps couldn’t just become preferred 3rd-party downloads from the App Store, where spin-off companies make iThis&#x2F;iThat or even things like Photos.<p>If that happened, Apple would be forced to actually communicate with several entities on a regular basis and improve their external-facing tools.  You can bet that SpinOff, Inc. would not stand for having major problems with developer tools or SDKs for instance.