Layout for Tablets which should work on every modern tablet (Android or iOS) and layout for phones (both in one application) is standard. We have nearly no webapp outside which is not a device app for different purposes which is always responsive and usable on tablets, phones and desktops. Is it trivial? No. Was the old mac world trivial? No. But yes, that’s what makes this job interesting.
AppleTalk is older, introduction 1985
2 Likes
I just want to celebrate AT, for a second. The LaserWriter and AT were released at almost the same time and holy crap did the world change in a heartbeat. Apple had another Macintosh moment, a year later.
I got to go to college and grad school during one of the best periods, ever. Look at computing history between say 1984 and 1994. The pace of change was amazing. I think the period we’re in right now will be looked back on as another. Everything is surging in a thousand directions.
2 Likes
Oh absolutely
Used piles of phone net connectors in my lifetime 
3 Likes
They started the development 1983. It was a really good solution for mac computers in this times. All Unix connectors … let me say an adventure
1 Like
Apple moments became seldem since jobs is dead.
2 Likes
good thing to see that this topic has not lost its direction
1 Like
Like the most topics Dave
I get what you say. And here comes the declarative UI, like SwiftUI, into play. This is way easier to manage than the old pixel-pushing.
2 Likes
DBKit is still in beta. He can’t leave this important work in an unfinished state.
1 Like
I’ve been looking very closely as some new AI programming models, and it has taken Xojo apps and converted them perfectly to golang. I think if Xojo continues to increase their price in a market where development languages are usually free there will be trouble ahead. I’m not even sure if they made it free that it could survive, even open source could fail. It’s a shame, I have used Xojo for decades and spent thousands, not only is AI taking our jobs, but also the life blood of the tools that we relied on. Difficult times ahead, however riding the crest of the wave is better than being hit by it.
1 Like
I have not had that experience. Regardless of the tool, so far I still think it’s faster to use the mouse to do gross layout and object (or multiple object) selection for property editing. Sifting through hundreds of lines in an editor to get the right property is not fast. Sifting through tens of folders and then through tens of files to get to the file that holds the property for one object is not faster than clicking on it, switching to the property group for that object that I want to change, then selecting the property, or nudging with arrow keys or dragging corners or vertexes.
I’m not saying that binary projects are superior (they are 100% inferior). I’m saying that the RAD tool serves some purposes for design that are quicker/easer/cheaper/faster/better than having to rely on a text editor, and the environment architect’s largesse.
Is this tongue-in-cheek? I think DBKit is about to be irrelevant, if it isn’t already.
100% true, but nothing new, we all knew it for many years…
Here I disagree, yes LLMs are helpful, but you re over-extragating. It’s neither the “life blood” nor it does kill the tools, we rely on.
I saw an internet address named genius.com (I think it was .com)… 
It is
It is a matter of taste I guess. For searching something like a property, a descent IDE offers tools for that and will find it for you in a breeze.
I originally met my first professional success in the xBase world (FoxBase / FoxPro) and missed the vibe of that product (before it was sold to M$FT). Xojo seemed superficially to aspire to the same vibe, but it didn’t take me too long to figure out that it was all smoke & mirrors.
Fox Software was founded by an academic and his top IT graduate students (it started as a research project) who took a product with a good concept and terrible execution (dBase) and ran circles around it in terms of performance and stability and cleverness, with perfect compatibility (it even had a command, SET BUGS ON to exactly reproduce the quirks of dBase IV, if your objective was to run unchanged dBase IV code). It died only when Dave Fulton sold out to the highest bidder while still at the top of his game. Today he enjoys his Stradivarius collection bought with his bazillions of M$FT dollars. I’m disappointed he wasn’t more interested in finding the kind of buyer that would value the wonderful Fox dev community, but he was certainly within his rights to do what he did. More’s the pity.
Xojo on the other hand might be regarded as an attempt to cater to lovers of a particular programming language / paradigm (Basic + RAD) who were being effectively abandoned by MSFT’s bungled transition from VB6 to VB.NET.
But instead of being helmed by a technical enthusiast and visionary with actual technical (and technical leadership) chops, Xojo is run by a guy without either of those things. He’s That Guy who thinks he’s the next Hemmingway but only self-publishes books on Hulu.com that never pass 100 in sales, mostly to his longsuffering family. Except that he has more $ than sense and so doesn’t learn from his repeated mistakes and unforced errors.
Anyway, Dave, if I had tried out Xojo maybe 20 years ago in the RB days instead of like just 4 years ago, I might be saying the same thing you are. I feel your pain.
3 Likes
TBH there are so may geoffisms that simply illustrate the truth of this
When you get told, repeatedly, “thats too computer sciencey for the average user” well that says a lot
4 Likes