I’d like to suggest a very unusual concept. It might sound really strange… Start a thread intended to give pats in the back of the Xojo engineers. I call it the “Back Pats” thread. Yes, that’s right, pats in the back.
Just like when hiking when the trail gets tough, you sometimes need to stop, open you backpack and eat a well deserved snack to give you energy to continue.
Let’s fill the engineers’ backpacks with pats, so that when the road gets hard, they can take a break, open their backpacks and feed on a few “back pats” posts to encourage them to keep going. Back pats.
Why?
Like a lot of you, I search the forum when looking for help about a bug in my code, a workaround in Xojo, general help… The community is amazing. But I find that too often I read very hard critics aimed at Xojo. Yes, some are justified. And I read the patient answers of Xojo engineers. I think: “What would I answer to that?”. I can tell you they are more patient and resilient than me !
Think about yourself as a developer when you deliver your new shiny app or quick fix utility and the only comments you hear from users are criticisms about what does not work. It’s hard… Of course you know there are things to improve, but you’d like some recognition on what you accomplished.
So this is the aim of my weird post
First, let’s try to write less emotional and passionate posts.
Second, let’s try to sprinkle all our posts with some positive and encouraging words.
Finally, let’s fill this backpack post with simple and encouraging back pats for Xojo engineers.
I’ve have nothing but praise for the product and the support I have received from the Xojo team AND the community. Very friendly, helpful bunch (with a few exceptions ). I came from FileMaker and the support here from the engineers and community are leap years ahead of what is on offer at the official FM forum. Love the product and already landed 2 projects this year - customers are loving the end results.
I would hope the engineers realize that such criticisms are not about them. Most know they have a ridiculous amount of work on their plates and there should be more of them, and that much of the things that are criticized most are are rooted in management decisions.
And while I understand the ownership of the product they may feel, I hope the engineers know those thing and so never take the criticisms personally… And understand that many of the critics are critical because they both like the product and are very frustrated about certain aspects of it at the same time.
I am constantly amazed by the talent on this team. Every single person at Xojo does an awesome job every day, and I’m humbled by – and grateful for – being able to interact with them the way that I do and as often as I do.
Xojo is a great and highly productive environment to work in. All the interaction I have had with the Xojo team has been fantastic. I’m looking forward to the Developer Conference in October to meet everyone.
You are absolutely right. I have been very critical of certain choices, no need to expand. But generally speaking, this is an easy to use, productive and quite capable tool. We are generally here because it is better than the alternatives for our vastly different use cases. This is an accomplishment in itself for which the whole team deserves kudos.
Thanks to all Xojo engineers (and also to the rest of the team). We are working mainly with c# and Node.js but I take a vacation from .NET and C# every now and then and relax from .NET with developing various tools with Xojo / Web 2.0 (which is much better than the impression sometimes given here) and look forward to Android.
Thanks for the relaxation I can experience with Xojo RAD and I look forward to whatever further development brings.
). I came from FileMaker and the support here from the engineers and community are leap years ahead of what is on offer at the official FM forum. Love the product and already landed 2 projects this year - customers are loving the end results.