I have a macbook air and have some projects where I write cross platform C and C++ libraries (Linux/OS X/Windows via mingw), currently using Makefiles and a text editor. I use and like IDEs when programming python, C++ on Windows and javascript and certainly wouldn't mind a powerful C IDE. Can XCode help in this case or do you have to basically be writing Mac/iOS apps to access that power? Also can XCode work nicely with Makefiles or do I have to buy into a special platform specific build system (again a problem with the whole cross platform thing)?

"Can XCode help in this case or do you have to basically be writing Mac/iOS apps to access that power?"

I'm also very interested to get the answer of this.