“We are working on a big update to the Windows framework that will dramatically reduce the flicker you sometimes see.”
You have to wonder if it is what Julian erudited
Eagerly waiting
I’m now getting really p…d.
The way Xojo Inc. stumbles from one big issue suddenly being pressing to the next one is really fascinating.
Suddenly only because a customer of Xojo Inc. takes the time to explain it in-depth the Windows flickering is a top priority. Xojo Inc.: it was a top priority for a decade or more!
Imagine: a customer pays for a product and then invests hours into developing a solution and then hands-over the solution to just get what he should have gotten with the initial product. Oh, it is called open source software. No, not in this case. In this case it is just called embarrassing. Kudos to Julian.
The blog post is even called “… Roadmap…”. I hope Mr Perlman meant it in a sarcastic way. If not it would be just insulting.
And now Interops and many other important things are massively delayed. How much fun is this?
In addition stuff which could have been becoming important and an asset for Xojo programming like the ability to compile to dylibs/dlls have never been mentioned anymore for years now they were mentioned in a blog post shortly after the move to LLVM was announced. As far as I can tell this blog post does not even exist anymore. Where have all these teasers gone?
In the end the move to LLVM has not changed one thing to the better. Auto-complete is not improved, error messages have not improved, the debugger has not improved, etc.
All in all very frustrating. And the way it always is being sold to us customers a lot of teasing, a lot of promises, failing to deliver on time, failing again to deliver on the second promised deadline, then again, and again, … finally delivering (but of course only a first half-baked minimal solution which then is not further developed for years) is especially annoying.
The strategic management of this company is over-challenged as is has been since at least 2010, when I first bought Xojo Pro.
End of rant.
Well, IF it is Julian’s then he deserves a lifetime license.
1997 (instead of 2010) bought REALbasic 1.0.
Nota: at these times (20 years ago, but not today), I was far more optimistic than today.
Another comment will follow after a good entry (not now).
Advice of the day.
If you are angry, wait till the next day to post.
This ends my advice of the day
Don’t meet a grace with anger.
Don’t forget to thank the effort.
Encouragements get much better results than grievance.
Could be worse.
They could have announced the delays with no emphasis on improving anything. I’ll take it.
I might be a newbie with Xojo, But I like the fact that we have more information about what’s going on. Xojo is a small company. If Apple decides to drop 32bit, Xojo has to follow, immediatly.
I agree on the fact that sometimes updates come slow, but that is the faith of every small software company with a huge project I think.
Now, I can give my two opinions on the subject:
a. I am absolutely furious to watch postponned stuff. Literally furious ! (kind of a joke, and an into to dot b).
b. I said that since
ages (far more than 20 years:
You have a plan with features scheduled for the next year. Nothing prevent you (I encourage you) to publicize the current state every now and then (every month ?).
At that occasion, you can say something like this feature is on the right trick (on time), this other feature roll so good that we have n days before our schedule and eventually (this kind of thing can arise) on feature #3, we are sorry: we had some trouble and are some days behind the schedule.
So: thank you Geoff for the blog informations. Bad news, but news. People knows where we (you) are.
Honest information are far better than silence, IMHO.
For the longest time, no matter what users said about flicker was met by an embarrassed and dismissive silence. Kinda “it is the nature of the beast”. Thanks to the brilliant work of , now Xojo understood flicker is not as inevitable as taxes, and work is done to alleviate that dreadful glitch.
I, for one, am extremely happy this happens. Sure, it took a while, but it is fantastic to see progress. Sure, there are growing pains, but as developers, we should all know that this is part of any improvement effort, in our own apps.
I am now confident Xojo will be able to deliver 
But even if ‘flicker is fixed’, I’d need know that the Direct2D issues are also resolved, otherwise I could end up with no flicker and a very slow app .
A new Windows framework! Cool! Love that!
Looking forward to new features.
And of course we all meet in Denver to talk to Geoff and watch his keynote, right?
I don’t care if everything is not ship shape yet. For over a decade there was no significant evolution on the Windows platform. Now there is. I am not going to rain on that parade.
It’s just that it comes at the wrong time. There was a day when we could count on an R4 release, or maybe R5.1, to be stable enough to use. R1 was usually a horror show. By R4, things would settle down. Not so much any more. There are just too many new “features” in each release, and as soon as one becomes stable, there’s another slew of new stuff that isn’t quite ready for prime time. I’ve been waiting since 2010 for a production-worthy version of Xojo. I’m losing hope.
C’mon, Xojo, pause, catch your breath, and fix some bugs before you add anything new.
Can you define what you mean by anything new ?
If it is anything new" found in the latest OS maybe.
If it is “anything new” that was added in a previous OS version probably not.
If it is “anything new”: make a tremendous update on some already existent feature that is far from rock solid: no. Give me that (as soon as possible).
A new feature not previously in Xojo that also affects existing functionality.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m all over the fact that they’re fixing the framework. I just wish they had released a rock solid version just prior to doing so. And that it won’t take several releases before the new framework actually works the way we expect it to.
I talk a little about this in my review series where every release is two steps forward one step back. I have had to use different versions of Xojo for the same project (desktop app with console helpers) because certain features either did not work properly in 64-bit or Windows.
The risk here is we do not know if this is a knee j-e-r-k reaction to recent complaints about Windows OR a shuffling of the schedule due to Android/interop delays. For all we know a huge Windows framework overhaul has been planned and architected already and they just shuffled things around to implement it faster. However this could just as easily be just some small changes to make flicker better and call it a day.
If the Direct2D and printing changes are any indication; It will be presented as a great change that takes a couple releases to iron out. So if you are using 2016 for Windows today you most likely will be for awhile.
I remain optimistic either way because Windows needs some love and it is hard to imagine being in a worse position.
Whatever we think of it, Windows is with 92% the undeniable biggest platform. We still cannot direct customers to switch platform for our sake, since we are expected to serve our customers rather than saddle them with our hobby.
The only way to get back stability and confidence, witch is a must for those of us who depend on manageable projects for customers, so based on proven technology.