A more realistic API2 Analogy would be something like:
Var d As New Dog
Var r As DogHasEaten
d.HasSnout = True
d.CanEat = True
...
r = d.EatDogFoodNow
Select Case r
Case d.DogDidntAte
//
Case d.DogAteMeat
//
Case d.DogAtekibbles
//
End Select
Samā¦ I agree with all you said with one exceptionā¦ ObjC does have a very steep learning curve (unless you come from a āCā background)ā¦ But Swift. the learning curve is no steeper that Xojo and I might argue much lessā¦
Fair point.
No extensive declares and lengthy workarounds with Swift.
If I would have to write only for MAC there is no question: would always useXCode and / or Swift. For Windows Visual Studio with C++ or C#. End of Story.
Jumping late on this wagon, but having read your thread I remembered that in ancient times (when we were listening to terrestrial radio) there used to be a German professor for name research (sic!) investigating callerās family names with enormous knowledge. Looks like heās still around. So if you should be interested in your family heritage and usual sources cannot give much insight, he could be helpful:
https://www.prof-udolph.com
Xojo now has super pdf report classes 
Oh, give Daniel a break. They use Shorts in their own products and when I sold it to them they had already added a bunch of features that I wanted to add (sub reports, charting, etc) but didnāt have the time/inclination to do it. So they use it and they could have just kept it but Iām glad theyāre actively maintaining it. I think they even plan to make it API2 compatible (no small feat). So I believe them when they say theyāll release a new version in the 2nd half of 2023.
Shoot, you can go to their website and purchase Shorts right now if you want. BKeeney Shorts 2.0 - varcess
Tim purchased ARGen but since sold it and itās open source now. I hear zero chatter about it any more. Formatted Text Control is open source now too. I doubt many people are using that either.
I think the add-on/library market has shrunk even more since I left the consulting world. It was hard enough back in the day to make any money from the Xojo community - I think itās even harder now. Christian, Bjorn, and maybe Anthony, are probably the only ones making any money in the Xojo community for add-ons/libraries but then I think they also do a lot of consulting work. The citizen developers donāt like paying for extras.
And I have hired Christian for some of that consulting work ā¦ just to get the Xojo Windows target talking to Sql Server, using his own plugin. I have literally never had to overcome any challenge in connecting to a DB before with any language, beyond getting the correct connection string. Whether itās Xojo, the plugin architecture, or the stew of moving parts that have to work together, it was cheaper to pay for an hour of his time to remote in and kick things in the right places than to spend a day or more figuring it out myself. I needed a bug fix prerelease of his plugin (I had downloaded the stable / release version) and needed to ājust knowā it was better to choose ODBC out of all the options (I have had ODBC filed away in my brain under ālegacy stuff no one uses for greenfield projects anymoreā). Even after that, I had to find alternatives to all the places I had used RowSet.Count(), which doesnāt work with ODBC (or at least MBās ODBC plugin), and to leave RowSets open and laying about after being created rather than clean up after myself.
I suspect the top plugin vendors just break even on the plugins themselves (if that) and make their money helping people out of various thickets they get into trying to get by on the Xojo framework alone. They solve the problem for $, and create more dependencies their plugin architecture / ecosystem in the process, which tends to lead to more renewals and maybe more consulting. It also gives them the opportunity to see things (mis)behaving in the wild, in different configurations.
This is not a critique, I actually admire it. It is not predatory, it is just leveraging an opportunity created by all the abandonware and lack of integration testing in Xojo. You canāt expect Christian, et. al., to step into the breach for nothing. It was money well-spent in my case, an actual force multiplier for myself.
Trust me, Iāve used Christian for some plugin consulting myself. Iām glad heās making enough money between FileMaker and Xojo plugins and consulting to stay in business and thrive. And I used his and Bjorns plugins for many years and have even purchased a few things from Anthony over the years too. Heck, there were things from new vendors that I bought just to encourage the market but alas most of those new vendors quickly went away.
Iāve said it for many years but this lack of focus on business developers hurts Xojo and the third party market. In my VB6 days it was not uncommon for us to spend $1500/year per developer for high end controls and libraries in addition to the VB6 licensing (which was EOL even then). Even in my heyday as a consultant besides the Xojo Pro license I was probably under $500 in additional spending for controls and libraries each year. Businesses will gladly pony up the money for upgrades and renewals (just the cost of doing business) whereas the citizen developers and hobbyists are extremely cost conscious (when their companies are not paying for their stuff).
But, as we all know, the business owners expect quality and speedy fixing of bugs and the shit they buy to ājust workā. Not the strength of Xojo of the past 4 or 5 years.
@bkeeney, @bgrommes, all things you state are true. Not the fault of anyone Xojo Incā¦ Without plugins and the effort of the plugin vendors, development of business apps in Xojo would simply be unsustainable.
Today, only hobbyists can afford to work with this platform. This has been different in the past, I learned. Most hobbyists canāt afford plugins - and why should they?
I guess weāll see one or more plugin vendors cutting back their efforts in the next 2-3 years.
Xojo is suffering from regressions in bread-and-butter stuff, which should not exist because of regression testing.
Example:
https://forum.xojo.com/t/2021r3-1-folderitem-open-launch-disregarding-parameters/75219
Something is definitely not right in their development process.
And another one:
https://forum.xojo.com/t/app-enablemenuitems-fires-every-time-app-is-brought-to-front/75260
Naw !!! cant be
they have regression tests
Geoff said so 
as if having unit tests is āDONEā check we never need to do more
they need to add to them constantly
make sure they run on EVERY darned build and if one fails the build fails and whatever made it fails goes back to the author
The beat (down) goes onā¦
Check how fast staff, MVPs and other fanboys shut down the views of the well respected developer Tim Parnell in this thread. Chart Tutorial - #25 by AlbertoD - General - Xojo Programming Forum . Then incredibly, as if in celebration, MVPs and fanboys āLikeā the beatdown. Very disrespectful behaviour towards any customer, more so to a developer who has supported and extended the platform. Truly dystopian.
Kind regards, Andrew
They simply cannot handle āthe truthā, many of the people (myself included) on THIS forum are on THIS forum due to the abysmal attitude that the management of Xojo has towards anyone that KNOWS how developent software should work.
Xojo may HAVE regression tests , but having a notebook on the shelf is not the same as applying those tests in a successful manner prior to a product deployment
2023r1 made a pretty good mess of drag-and-drop on Linux. But maybe thatās not ābread-and-butter.ā 
ā¦MVP threatening a forum member/customer with being banned if he doesnāt shut up. Xojo management a total no-show and failing to moderate at all.
The MVP body guard trick is truly disgusting and their aggressive behaviour transpires fear. Doomsday mood in Xojo land.
Xavier kept it professional. This should be mentioned, too.
