Fuck you genius.
Written some code for a web app, tested it locally, moved to production and error after error.
Why, because the database back-end that production uses doesn’t support API 2.0. The IDE doesn’t care, so it become a runtime error.
Man, this shite sucks ass.
Could you do the following: using another language for your web Apps. Anyhow API 2 is not a really good Idea for a WebPage. Since Xojo has no interest in fixing all the bugs you may have the problem for a long time from now.
Eventually I will have to re-write them in another language, as I have no intention of using Web 2.0. I don’t want to do that right now as I have a deadline to migrate them to a different server.
I didn’t even intend to use API 2.0, and I forgot to enable the prefs option to auto-complete API 1.0, so I let the auto-complete guide me into a fucking nightmare.
I’ve almost finished re-coding that method back to API 1.0 so it can work with the database backend.
Just ranting about how fucking stupid “2.0 All The Things™” really is.
I understand there are frictions between some of you and Xojo Inc.
and I too have strong doubts about Xojo.
But I think INN would be better if these topics were less relevant.
Sometimes the tones are even funny, other times they go too far, in my opinion.
I don’t normally vent with this language, but I was furious this morning when I found out that I need to re-do my work because of this useless change.
That’s on top of having to use an older version which crashes a lot on my current work Mac, because of the same stupidity.
That’s true. It’s even more remarkable considering that many of us here were genuine fans at one point. However, that might be the reason: some have truly been affected by the know-it-all attitude of one decision-maker, nearly destroying their businesses in certain instances. As a result, emotions tend to flare up more easily.
However, it is essentially a waste of time. The green company should receive the attention it truly deserves, which is none.
Stages of grief. We’re all going thru it and have a tiny fraction of hope.
It’s very hard to move on, but once you do, you’ll wonder why you put up with it for so long.
have had a tiny fraction of hope
That differs. There was a moment where I lost all hope and that was release of first 2020 release.
I spent 20+ years supporting Xojo. Wrote apps for a couple hundred clients in various industries. Wrote hundreds of articles, wrote feedback reports on beta issues. Was called a ‘shill’ on numerous occasions but for the most part people said my reviews were fair. If I called out a bug it really was a bug and if I was wrong I corrected the blog post.
The last 5 years or so, man, the wheels fell off the product, the community, and my consulting business. I now work full-time for someone else. I did Xojo work non-stop for 3 years and they retrained me in another language.
It took a few months of working with a well maintained and advancing IDE and language to realize just how bad the Xojo wheels were to begin with. Features that other IDE’s have had for years Xojo will never have. API 2.0 and all the bugs and there’s zero chance that our product will ever use any of API 2 (and Xojo IDE will never be API 2).
Hal hit the nail on the head. Many of us are grieving the loss of Xojo in our business. It was a very good product that was never perfect but allowed us to satisfy our, and our clients, needs. A small part of us wants it to be good and improve but we’ve been down that rabbit hole time and time again. Fool me once vs fool me dozens of times.
My perception of the HQ in Austin:
Replace “Cloud” with “Xojo Cloud”, “Xojo mobile”, “API 2”, “low code”, “strategy”, “vision” …
Update: “AI”, “Git” …
And Containers to garbage containers and Kubernetes to green garbage containers. Then it is close to the best way
With what would you replace it for desktop apps ? dotnet maui apps ? or mac apps with visual studio and windows app with visual studio (with C# )
For web apps, angular with C# for the back-end ?
Are those good options ?
Jean-Maurice
There are options
And what you choose will depends on what your specific needs are
Java is definitely cross platform and you can use it for all of those application types (and yes it can be precompiled into a stand alone exe - @thorstenstueker has mentioned this several times and may even have a “How To” in the Java channels - if not that WOULD be VERY handy !)
C# is, or was I’m not sure, making headway x-platform so you could create many types of apps using that
Kotlin multi platform is also possible
There are several IDE choices for each language
On Windows MS Visual Studio is the de facto standard
Jet Brains Rider is also an option
And RemObjects IDE’s exist on Mac & Windows for several languages
The choices are way better today than they were even 10 years ago
I’ve replaced Xojo with Vala over a year ago. It is C# and Java like and the documentation is very complete. There are numerous examples available online. I’ve written some libraries to assist with making the apps look native on macOS and Windows, that was probably the most challenging part.
But for desktop, outside of the infuriating changes for no real benefit, cost and finding people who know it (and for business that is a big deal), Xojo still seems be a reasonable tool for producing in-house X-Platform desktop apps… for the moment.
That said, most of that usefulness comes from design work done years ago and not really updating a lot of the underpinnings (particularly in an X-platform way) … and that is starting to show more and more.
While they have added some LONG overdue features (though buggy and not complete) , outside of just scrambling to keep working with OS changes IMO they have chosen to coast on the old work and not bring any real innovation to the core desktop product or really optimize it’s performance.
For myself I am torn. I am close to the end of my working life and my workplace and job has changed such that opportunities to code for work are going to be much fewer.
While i like creating software, it has always been in conjunction with my jobs (thought it never has been my job) to meet needs I saw, going back to the the mid 1980s,
Starting with something new now largely is not practical timewise.
I don’t like how the company is managing the product and think they have been in the process of shooting themselves in the foot for long time now… but for the occasional opportunities I may have left to produce something useful, changing does not seem to be practical.
Sure if we ignore all the problems it has then yeah its fine 
IF I were starting in a business now, unlike 20 years ago, would I use for anything critical ?
Unlikely. It would be relegated to utilities to make my job easier. Which is unlike what I did with it way back when where it formed a critical piece of the overall solution.
Lord knows what Apple will throw in the mix next - thats usually been where they’ve had to adapt what they have leaving them little time to move things forward with new language features, etc.
Async/await would be really nice, anonymous functions would be useful, decent ORM capabilities - not DBKit - Active record is more what I’m thinking
There ARE many places they could move things forward a lot
Instead we got renaming of events & properties which threw out 20+ years of great examples. documentation. And every issue of xDev older than that needs a rewrite
And you see it with people like @eugenedakin rewriting all his books for API 2 - although they are also getting other updates as well.
Adding VAR is perhaps the most perfect example of useless changes
It changed nothing
It didnt make the language any more “modern”
It was change for change sake
If you already master the platform. Nobody in their right mind would start building a codebase in Xojo today. This was my reckoning last year.
A travesty!
Not even then while too many workarounds and too many Bugs and too many insecurities that the code is next version never coming up again. Who should be so crazy to do that and smashing money out of the window. Not to forget: especially for in House Applications I have with Java for example only to distribute a few kb as jar file and an JRE installed on the clients that’s it. No Cross Platform Hazzling at all, runs on all platforms and that’s it no cross compilation needed while the jar runs compiled once: anywhere. So why should somebody compile Xojo and starts testing on all platforms like a hero when he has the chance to do that Job in 5 minutes? The entire point is for internal apps: if it runs on let’s say Java 17 on macOS then it does granted also on Win and Linux. So a Swing application will run under all circumstances on the JRE. Xojo? too far away too many stuffs to do too much to test for internals. We have around 20 Apps in my company as internals. Running now on Java 17, before all on 11. We have all platforms (Win, Mac, Linux) as Desktops. I never tested on all platforms, I tested on my Development system. Within the last two decades I had no problem that it was ever not running. That is cross platform and not the nonsense of Xojo.
