Finding Xojo people IS tough
I have at least one client simply because they could not find ANY others despite trying for many months
They advertised on the Xojo Pro list
Publicly posted
And got no replies
Raising their own wasnt an option as they have NO developers on staff
I assume they had a big xojo/RB app already that it was too expensive to have redone in another language?
If it was not originally created by an in house ācitizen developerā, how did they wind up with a custom Xojo app in the first place?
-Karen
The Chance that it was a citizen educated professional developer (my wording for professional xojo developers which in most cases are only programming in xojo language and are not educated in computer science, mathematics, engineering or physics) if really high. There is no market for really professional xojo developers like it is for c++ or Java. Makes it hard to find somebody and makes it hard for somebody to change somewhere else. Xojo is a dead end that is the big problem. And as long we are discussing around Xojo as a professional platform I have to say that there is no professionalism in the Xojo language lifetime nor in the xojo development or in the xojo development team. No education alone makes not a bad programmer. But it helps while not educated people are not even know about fundamental Standards (ANSI, ISO, EU, DIN, AEC, GostR, ASEA and much much much more) for Software Development. Nut fulfilling them means: no chance for use inside of big Organizations and not in regulated technologies like marine, aviation, space, military, medical, police, firefighters, ambulance technologys, communication systems, router systems and many more while regulatory bodies are not accepting that software lifecycle process. When your compiler is deprecated you can not validate the lifecylce maintenance for the Software. That is the SHOWSTOPPER in all of that standards. In US. Europe. Canada. China. Next one is: if the Software is deprecated how you will supply cyber security in future? Yes, I know, no answer. End of Show. Show stopped, Software out of Service by Regulator.
I could write much more arguments but this one is the most annoying argument. Plus the fact that you not know (or you know by experience already) if you even can rewrite your Software next month with next version. Advise of the Company: "Use the older version instead until you can rewrite, we have customers still using 2016 Version and even older for production.
And this, all of this and the stuff around tells me that I and all others working in an environment where regulation is there (even if until now not controlled by notificated body) are not able to use Xojo AND fulfill the regulated industry standards.
And the best example for my science of stupid was until now: āI am using Xojo for industrial cases, with my Software we control machinesā. One sentence to that: if somebody will get harmed by that machine, did you know that it has not even to be your fault but you are guilty in that process while it was not allowed to provide your Software? Not everything what is possible is also a good Idea to do. I can drive in the inner city 120 MPH butā¦if they catch me I have to pay. And that is the same situation. Especially in US and Canada it is so that in cases like that the prosecutor asks one of the underwriters laboratories, they check and you pay. So: how to use Xojo outside professional Business which is not like Games or Fun Software? How?
Does chemistry count? 
(I have a Masterās degree in Chemistry and had written number of in-House apps over the years using RB/RS/Xojo)
At one time I thought (if I had gotten my skill level higher) I might have been able to make some extra money using Xojo in āretirementā to supplement Social Security (which is not very much in the US)ā¦ but now that retirement is near I realize that would have been very unlikelyā¦
Xojo is the only language I have used for the last 20ish years when I coded (in the last 20+ years i have aways had mixed Mac and PC environments at work) ā¦ and what i used before I donāt really remember any longer (BASIC FORTRAN Pascal, and some speciality languages way back when) ā¦
Always hated C and C-like syntaxā¦ When just about everything went C and C++ on the desktop I stopped coding for a few years until I found RB.
While the concepts in C were not an issue, my brain just canāt read C type syntax well for some reasonā¦ Between that and needing to be X-Platform desktop is why I was once very high on RB/RS.
Now, if I will need to supplement my income in retirement, and as Walmart has done away with Greeters, I donāt know what Iāll do!
-Karen
Oh sorry. It is like all time. Yes, chemistry counts. Also people studied chemistry have a deep mathematical knowledge. And the knowledge is needed for coding.
The C Syntax is not a dream, your right. Java has a c - like syntax what makes it not more attractiveā¦But there is nothing else I can use for Desktop, Web and command Line Applications on all platforms.
not a huge app
written by a contractor
You need the runtime installed and your apps donāt look native and behave different. I want native controls.
On topic, Xojo MAC apps are pretty close.
On Windows, the controls are (mostly) native, but now that so many apps are going the UWP route, aānativeā Win32 app is starting to feel out of plave.
Just this week I had a few customers demanding to know why my Windows app doesnt support dark mode.
It appears there is nothing that will make it happen seamlessly.
To make nods towards it, I am in the process of subclassing every window, and replacing Xojo controls with container controls over which I have control.
Which means eventually I can have most of the app in ādarkā
The real cost is this loses me a lot of GUI design: all my custom clases based on a container control are just boxes on screen.
So I find myself turning the XOJO IDE experience into the B4J IDE , one control at a time. 
See I was changing to Java and I am using Swing with JFormdesigner. You can also use JavaFX with the GLUON Scenebuilder. But with Swing Dark Mode is one Click away for my users and I do not even have to do much for it cause the controls all following the look and feel I defined in my Main Method. With FlatLaf FlatLaf - Flat Look and Feel | FormDev I have light Mode and Dark Mode themes and can select what I want to provide to my customers and itās costing me one minute. So Design and View are totally different shoes.
There are tons of themes inside
Which, in turn, is fine FOR YOUā¦
And both these things make me hating Java. For example, I have my habits to work faster, like keyboard shortcuts; many donāt work there.
Their different standardisation makes a lot of users unhappy with that (somehow like learning a new operating system; thatās also often hated).
And both Mac OS and Windows have guidelines (HIG) because the best user experience is with known things.
Probably true for very small teams or single users using the apps (what Xojo is aimed at). Completely different experience when dealing with large teams that have e.g. their own support teams. I remember presenting a Xojo mock-up half a decade ago to a large company, proud it looked native on each platform. They were less than impressed and the first question I got was: āwe donāt mind the OS our users work on, but you will make the appearance of the app on all platforms the same, no?ā. They hated to have to do the support for the native looking app. And the users didnāt mind at all.
I can not stand this discussion seriously. You know that the ānativeā behavior of the Xojo Items is everything else than really native? Itās described and the beginning of this thread. Second: maybe you hate not native. Why are you not writing with Wxwidgets or QT for that? It would help you to write fast and for really all platforms embedded included. Then and only then you could speak ablout native. What I hate is self made native but not native. Something like a bit pregnant. A phonenumber which is a bit correct. That is not acceptable. Why?
Because the sense behind native is that users on that platform will have always the same and I mean exactly the same look and feel and behavior. The problem is that Xojo is doing everything else but this. So why you think you can say that in the same context you say Java is bad Xojo is good? It is not. Cause you as programmer believe that it behaves native. So you write Tool Tip. In the believing that it is native. But your user can not read the entire one. Why: cause it is out of range. Why: because it is something self crocheted what is behaving different to real native. Where? You can not even know. That s the clue about.
My customers love that the App is behaving on all platforms the same and has on all platforms the same look and feel and they can decide if lightmode or darkmode. Of let the system decide (MACOS only). That means: native is native if it is really native. And not a bit. If it is a bit native it is NOT NATIVE at all. Why? While the point on native is the same view on the platform under all circumstances. That you can not provide.
On the other side: I had to learn that the native argument of the people in Xojo Scene is really important and even more interesting than a working and error/bug/free environment to develop Software. And yes: I know that developing with Xojo is really, really simple to start and to do. Java is much more complicated and has really completely different Ideas behind.
And maybe, a really few of the xojo users, have customers which are developing for third parties which want to get xojo development. Which don t want something else: Be strong and tell customers that there is something else.
Native doesnāt matter. 
It used to matter quite a bit. The old Java apps were often so quirky as to be nearly useless. It was a good talking point in 2003.
Native may or may not matterā¦ but to me (my opinion) consistency doesā¦ I donāt want all my apps to look drastically different because each developer made their own control themeā¦
I see and you are right but if you have tooltip running out of monitor it is not usable at all. So Xojo is not the Right Tool what ever you say.
And yes, java makes itās own interface and differs from the rest. I know that. But xojo differs also. And therefore: you might then only develop with apple languages or c++ with wxwidget or qt. There is no really native xojo.
So far as I can see it is acceptable to have two opinions: java and native programming. But native was never a discussion point. More interested where until now all customers to have the same GUI on all platforms.
the term āNATIVEā refers to a given platformā¦ macOS -OR- Windowsā¦ not macOS -AND- Windows
a specific control in ānativeā mode may appear very different on macOS and Windows, and thats ok.
It is where that same control appears differently in multiple programs on the same platform that becomes āinconsistentā. Native controls also follow the theme changes from the OS itself, without the developer needing to worry about it.
I spoke about xojo controls on Mac which are not working correct.
