I beg to differ. I've written code on Windows, OS X, and Linux, with tools ranging anywhere between Xcode, VS, and plain old vim.
Visual Studio is a fine IDE that has a lot of things going for it. Hell, now that I write Obj-C for a living I wish Xcode was more like VS (especially when it comes to stability).
In contrast, I'd rather marathon American Idol than use Eclipse for a single day.
I use ex-vi (the original Bill Joy) version for preference, in 80x24 xterms tiled using fvwm2.
I am not really a GUI person.
I ... loved Visual Studio + VB6 for UI heavy apps. The programming language was kinda lame but it was just about good enough, and the form designer tools were excellent.
I debugged using whatever the (now lost from my memory) appropriate colloqualism for printing to stderr was, because yeah, sorry, I'm like that. But I loved it for everything else even so.
Do not underestimate the awesomeness that is Visual Studio once you've had time to develop enough Stockholm to ignor the crazy quirks.
XCode has matured very recently. It's gone from worst IDE to arguably best in a very short amount of time.
Recent additions include integrated Git, code intelligence so good that it understands C++ templates, in-IDE static analysis, one-keystroke to fix typos in identifiers, etc.
No scripting. Cretinous window layout facilities. No search and replace in selection. No mixed source/disassembly view. Registers view disappears when as you debug. No keyboard shortcut for rectangular selections. Code browsing menu 'thing' doesn't show structs. That stupid log navigator is too damn narrow, and has a proportional font. Pasting of rectangular selections doesn't work. No column/line number display. Lacks numerous basic simple text manipulation commands.
If only Xcode could refrain from crashing long enough to take advantage of those new features.
As a Mac dev for about two decades, I find that Xcode has taken a massive downhill slide latel. It went from merely mediocre to nearly unusable in a remarkably short amount of time.
Visual Studio is a fine IDE that has a lot of things going for it. Hell, now that I write Obj-C for a living I wish Xcode was more like VS (especially when it comes to stability).
In contrast, I'd rather marathon American Idol than use Eclipse for a single day.