General Programming Question.

Currently I’m almost finished with building my first database file, but I want to make the finished project to be bigger. I want it to do many things a part from databases, like calculations and web scrapping. My question, is it general practice to create multiple Xojo projects and some how have the initial starting program call on the other projects to run as needed? I think we used to do something like this in MATLAB. The reason I’m asking this is because I’m afraid the program I’m wanting to develop will become too heavy and it will slow down the software performance. So perhaps calling on other programs, this will help make the parent program lighter and more functional? Any input regarding this?

Hi Kayla,

what is heavy for you? 10 kLocs or 50 or 100? These shouldn’t be a problem for Xojo.

Helper apps are usually used for technology reasons and not because of the program structure. Like a console helper app for threads. Or for me a Python app that does stuff that Xojo can’t do.

The more code you have the more you have a need for OO. You need to structure your code in a way that makes extending functionality easier. If you struggle with your code, fear changing something or always fix problems in a specific part of your app then it’s time to do a refactoring.

If you have lots of other ‘heavy’ code to run then consider running them in threads.

Alternatively, create a Schedule Helper application which looks to the database for tasks to perform then runs them apart from the main application, but places any results back in the database when finished. You can share the same code for both applications in a module.

One of the main concepts behind OOP is to be able to reuse code from one program to another. The best way you can succeed integrating new functions without messing up what you already accomplished is to create new programs, say, to do calculation in one, web scrapping in another. That gives you an opportunity to hone your skills and make experiment without risks. If you are careful about using methods instead of tying the logic into controls, it will be easy once these new programs behave as you expect, to incorporate them seamlessly into the main program.

Xojo is used to develop extremely big and complex programs, which perform fine. For instance the IDE, which is written in Xojo. So you are probably very far from reaching any limit.

Thanks for the replies.

I was mainly concerned with code over lapping code somehow and the program not behaving properly. I’m still getting used to Xojo, but this did pop up in the back of my mind.

@Michel Bujardet what is OOP? What does it stand for? Taking a guess, it can be found in Xojo library?

Sorry for the acronym.

OOP stands for Object-oriented programming. In a nutshell, it is a style of programming in modular blocks that can easily be reused in other programs. For a more academically correct definition and extensive description, see

You will often see that acronym used throughout this forum.

Kayla,
please consider download and read “Introduction to Programming with Xojo”,
that’s an ebook tha you can download from Xojo website, that has a simple introductio to OOP, and concepts like classes and subclasses.

[quote=195917:@Giulio Mastrosanti]Kayla,
please consider download and read “Introduction to Programming with Xojo”,
that’s an ebook tha you can download from Xojo website, that has a simple introductio to OOP, and concepts like classes and subclasses.[/quote]
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