in this overview Xojo is nowhere, why. How big are we really ?
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
I’ve become pretty good at xojo, but I know nowone here in Norway doing it, so am I alone here ?
If you are, think of it as competitive advantage. 
A couple of months ago, Xojo appeared in the “Next 50 Languages”. I believe that Tiobe must have recently reworked their algorithm. I have seen big changes in the 21-100 list. I would love to see Xojo back on the list and eventually work it’s way into the 21-50 list. Perhaps when XDC rolls around, that will spur extra social media activity and get Xojo onto the list. Unfortunately XDC is a very tiny conference with less than 200 attendees. That won’t spur a lot of online discussion.
That being said, we need more people to blog and talk about Xojo in other arenas than just this forum: Reddit, StackOverflow, etc. Have you blogged about Xojo today? 
Is it that important that Xojo be mentioned in the Tiobe list ? For Xojo Inc, no doubt. But for me, developer who has benefited from the language for years ? I need a tool that lets me create software that does what I want it to do with a minimum of efforts, and a fast turnaround. That is Xojo. As Kem says, it is competitive advantage I am not eager to give my competitors.
As a targeted product developer, it doesn’t matter very much as long as there are arenas where you can get help. Such as this forum. Xojo is your secret weapon that allows you to develop applications quickly for multiple platforms for a reasonable price with a reasonable license cost.
As a vertical market product developer, it may be important. The clients want to know that if they want to extend your product, or in the event of your untimely demise, that they can find developers that can pick up the development of their mission-critical application. The more popular the language, the easier it will be to find a developer and keep their business on track.
As a consultant however, it is very important. I often say: The more Xojo programming there is, the more bad Xojo programming there will be. This increases the likelihood that I (as a programmer consultant) would be hired to fix up the application, and extend it. That’s good business.
Any time you all blog about Xojo, post about it on forums outside of the community, mention it to your friends, Tweet, link to us, etc. it helps! I’m not sure exactly where we are on the Tiobe list right now, but I do talk to them periodically and they are tracking Xojo. The more links we have the higher we’ll climb on the list and we need your help. If you have a blog or website please link back to us. We offer some Made with Xojo logos (via your account) that would be great to place on your website with a link back!
For a freelancer and your clients don’t care in what you write it, Xojo is a great tool with many advantages. In this case, it is really not important if it ranks in any list.
But, as a developer working for a company it is a different story. If the language is not known, it’s very hard to look for another job if you only can program in that one language (this is why I try to master at least 7 different languages). If only Xojo comes up on your CV, it will not make a big impression on your future boss no matter how good you are. And it is very unlikely they will change their programming language because you are so great in it.
Here in Belgium, there are only 2 companies I know off (ours included, freelancers not counted) who program in Xojo. So if I ever want to change jobs, my options would be very limited if I only would master Xojo.
So the more Xojo comes up in such lists, the better.
Also, more people using Xojo means more people buying Xojo, which gives Xojo more money to hire employees to fix bugs and add features.
Most of those graphs and lists that I have seen are based on how often it is mentioned on STACKOVERFLOW.COM and one other site that slips my mind at the moment. Which by virtue of that measurement methodology puts XOJO at a huge disadvantange, as the usefulness of THIS forum as a source of information is vastly superior to those others, therefore causing less topics to be opened on sites other than this one.
So XOJO “counts lower” … but the other side of that coin…one might also surmise that the more hits on StackOverflow, the more PROBLEMS a user is having with another enviroment…
Remember “FIGURES never lie, but Liers always FIGURE”
If it’s true, then Xojo should modify the forums so that the posts all get forwarded to stack overflow! (I know it’s not that easy).
Actually it should be the other way round! 
It would be great if Xojo could promote usage of Stackoverflow.com by using their API or RSS to post new Xojo questions to a channel here and encourage users to go answer (keep the topics locked here).
Stackoverflow.com makes a big difference to the social standing of a language, apart from Tiobe, developers in general take notice of the number of questions asked about a language.
Another large contributor to the social standing of a language is usage on GitHub.
They search 25 search engines with +“ programming” and merge the hit counts somehow. For a language to be listed it needs more than 10,000 hits.
http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/programminglanguages_definition.html
I get 589 hits googling +“Xojo programming”. Maybe we just need to write the phrase “Xojo programming” more on our twitter, facebook, blog…
The technique seems a bit dubious to me though as a way to measure popularity. Better than nothing.
One useful metric is number of full time employment opportunities with a given stack. With that in mind Xojo has little clout.
That being said I don’t really care how popular it is. Xojo allows me to compete with much larger teams.
Helge jeg er Xojo programmerer!
It is important to me. Xojo is not a secret weapon, IMHO. It helps me do my job, but it is still a language and requires a skilled developer to produce a quality application. Any skilled developer can learn any other language.
It is important to me because a small community means less developers on the forums answering questions, less income to Xojo so less employees working on Xojo. Smaller community means fewer people making add ons, open and closed source, etc… An unknown language is much harder to sell to many clients/customers who will want to have the application around for a while and more. When/if you need to hire more developers for an app that has taken off or an internal app that has grown a bit too large, with a smaller community it’s harder to find available, good developers.
What is the down side of more people using Xojo? I can’t think of any.
[quote=161017:@Jeremy Cowgar]It is important to me. Xojo is not a secret weapon, IMHO. It helps me do my job, but it is still a language and requires a skilled developer to produce a quality application. Any skilled developer can learn any other language.
It is important to me because a small community means less developers on the forums answering questions, less income to Xojo so less employees working on Xojo. Smaller community means fewer people making add ons, open and closed source, etc… An unknown language is much harder to sell to many clients/customers who will want to have the application around for a while and more. When/if you need to hire more developers for an app that has taken off or an internal app that has grown a bit too large, with a smaller community it’s harder to find available, good developers.
What is the down side of more people using Xojo? I can’t think of any.[/quote]
I don’t disagree. However as long as Xojo is proprietary it will always have niche appeal.
I’m sure that’s true, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to help promote it. The more users of Xojo, the better for us all.
Define “proprietary” in regards to XOJO… how is it any more or less “proprietary” than VB.NET or any of a number of other 3rd party langauages?
As far as “Stackoverflow”… If XOJO were to integrate posts from there into this forum, I would be apt to leave… That group is the most pious, ego-centeric group of people I have ever seen… quite the contrary to most members of this group.
Well its certainly more proprietary than the .NET stack now… that being said proprietary languages these days are frowned upon. Academics and many enterprises are using open source software to save money. The ecosystems around open source software is vast and extensive. I don’t really want to compare and contrast because countless have already done so.
All I’m saying is as long as Xojo is not free software or open source it will not be able to compete with a python or Java.
These language stats are kinda like the US News college rankings and about as relevant. Any IT decision maker deciding on the next group of programmers to hire based on number of blog posts is optimizing around the wrong constraints.
Well we help promote it by virtue of being here and using it. I don’t feel I have any additional duty or responsibility to promote it. I believe the product will continue on its own merit with or without me.
Frankly since its proprietary I actually feel LESS responsibility to promote it because I’m not a part of the incentive structure.