I came across this recent Xojo Spotlight interview with Christian Wheel:
I found it interesting, particularly because Christian has been using Xojo for a long time and has apparently also used it for internal tools while working at Apple.
I’m curious how other long-time Xojo developers read this interview.
Do you think it gives a realistic picture of developing with Xojo today, including its strengths and weaknesses, or does it naturally present a more positive picture because it is a Xojo-produced community spotlight?
My main thought is that his definition of cross platform is Windows and MacOS, so he is avoiding all the weakest areas of the product. “Same code everywhere” starts to fall apart outside that realm, and particularly with respect to the web and mobile targets, is less stable and capable anyway. So from a standpoint of commercial practicality, he’s just not bumping into those things.
Of course, competitors haven’t proven themselves here yet, either. We will have to see how well the abstractions hold together on web and mobile vs desktop. I have more confidence in how the up & coming products we’re discussing here are planned, architected, and managed, vs Xojo’s pretty consistent, er, track record in those areas. I’ve looked most closely at Objo, and I think Garry has the requisite architectural and business sense for sure. He’s also the only vendor so far who has a stated succession plan in the form of a commitment to open source the product if something happens to himself or his company. Even absent many specifics (provision for a foundation or other governance vs just putting it out there for random forking) I think that makes it more likely that 20 years from now it will have evolved into a very mature and established product unlike … whatever Xojo has become since the RealBasic days.
I am happy to see Buoy and Thornston’s announced product (having a bit of trouble remembering the name for some reason) in the mix. It is interesting to have similar products attacking the problem from different angles. Building atop .NET vs Java vs LLVM for example, native vs Avalonia. I still regard it as an embarrassment of riches.
Maybe you are wondering why I posted this Xojo Spotlight interview here.
Like many of you, I stopped using Xojo because of the bugs. For a very long time, I worked around them and tried to make the best of it.
However, from one moment to the next, Xojo started crashing at startup. It happened suddenly, without me changing anything. Restarting, checking the operating system (Windows 10) — nothing helped.
Christian Wheel does not mention any serious bugs and seems extremely satisfied with Xojo. There is nothing wrong with that if this genuinely reflects his experience.
However, like many people here, my experience has been very different. I now prefer using a very young development environment such as Objo Studio rather than Xojo, which has been around for decades.
In my opinion, both Garry and Gregg approach software development quite differently from Geoff Perlman. Both make sure that there is succession for their creations. Both listen to their users, fix bugs quickly, and what they produce does not feel bloated.
I am not claiming that Xojo is useless. Clearly, people are successfully creating software with it, Christian Wheel being a good example. But using Xojo can also cause a lot of headaches.
I simply don’t have those headaches with Objo Studio.
My bad
I know about Gregs plan and had thought things were already open sourced
As for certain examples not compiling remember Buoy has not reached V1.0 yet so some things are NOT yet implemented, not documented, or a mix of the two
And still in flux. I found an early implementation of File in the framework that required using strings the other day. Thats all been folded into FileSystemItem.