Much as I’d like to see Xcode on iPad, I doubt it will happen; at least, not with the current Xcode.
Xcode is huge, it’s bigger than most games. A lot of that size, is an aggregation of tools, built up over a couple of decades.
Replacing it with a rewrite, would be a major operation, but would probably be required, in order to work on iPad.
You can configure an iPad up to 2TB. I don't think storage if going to be the blocker
A 2TB 13" iPad with a Magic Keyboard is more expensive than a 2TB 14" MBP with double the RAM.
They may sell a capable enough iPad but it doesn't make a lot of financial sense unless they closed all the gaps.
Yeah, but it's not a monolithic code block.
I suspect there are dozens of tools, that are years old, have very few folks that know how they work, and probably only work on Mac.
Ah, you're consider the possibility of Xcode on ipadOS? I was imagining Xcode on an Ipad running macOS.
EDIT: I should have read the thread more closely.
Most of its size, I think, comes from the device emulator images.
I’m not sure of that.
It stores that stuff in a different container.
[UPDATE:] I just looked at the contents.
The single biggest component is the toolchains (Swift, SourceKit, etc).
The next biggest components, are the platforms (which may be used to construct simulator images).
These are all wrapped into the app, itself.