About three weeks ago I downloaded the trial version of Xojo to start programming. Just for fun and later perhaps to create small apps for business use (I have a master of automotive management degree working for a large German car maker in the field of technical planning).
But the more I gave Xojo a try, the more I see that you have to buy third party plugins in order to get a fully featured software development environment. And considering that one license costs about 800 , this is simply too much.
Xojo is really nice for building a GUI fast, but it’s hard work to produce professional results with pure Xojo. Maybe I’m just not part of the “ordinary people creating extraordinary apps” league. ;-(
Anyway, thank you to the community who tried to provide assistance. I really appreciated your tips, hints and comments (besides the offers to buy plugins . And I’m a bit sorry that Xojo is so disappointing, the discussion board here is really a nice place to talk.
I’m sorry you are leaving, as I totally disagree with your statements
I have and do develop very full featured, complex and professional level applications using XOJO alone, as I’ll bet do many others here. And is it hard work? Of course it is (hard being a relative term)… Creating a professional application in ANY language requires time, patience, imagination, and a commitment… Be it XOJO, “C”, Swift, Python, Ruby (add the name of your choice).
And sorry to say, but having a Masters in Automotive Engineering does not necessarily mean you have the proper mindset to be a good programmer… .A programmer doesn’t just write code, he/she must be able to percieve the “problem”, conceptual a workable solution, determine what the proper end user work flow needs to be, THEN perhaps start writing some code.
Personally I have been a Software Systems Engineer in both the Aircraft and Defense industrys, as well as spending the last 20 years working in the Healthcare Industry… but that coupled with my background doesn’t mean I can design a car
And seriously? 5 posts, 1 week on the forum and you are giving it up?
Take a big breath. You must be tired. Remember all these hours trying to wrap your head around mechanics, physics and mathematics ? Programming is every bit that, plus the need for a large measure of patience, to make it happen. You may have forgotten that virtue, which is the basis for any engineering occupation.
If anything, you cannot master programming in Xojo in one week. Or in any other programming language for that matter. Take it easy, take it slowly, curb a bit your haste, take the time to study, try not to teach people who may know a thing or two about Ctrl-I, and you will get there. Think about it : how many years does it take to make a mechanic ? Programming is not only using parts. It is in large measure creating them as well.
Some of us have been programming for 30+ years. That does not make us necessarily extraordinary. But it does make us good craftsmen. It is a fact of life : experience is not instant, and every failure is a chance to learn.
Come back when you have relaxed a bit…
PS :
Not true : a Desktop license is $99.00 only.
As for plugins, they are the best shortcuts if you are not willing to learn. Or if you are a professional who does not have time to do research. But an immense number of things plugins do can be achieved with declares or astute programming. Not to forget voluntary work from Xojo programmers who share their code for free, like the good guys who created the Windows Functionality Suite. Not to forget there are countless recipes in the forum, plus really nice people willing to help.
I too think that you need to give it more time. I too do all my development in pure Xojo with no plugins. I know that numerous folks using Xojo do the same. However, depending on the type of application you are developing, plugins can save a lot of time. I assume if you are building business apps that you would be accessing databases and displaying data and maybe producing charts? If you will define the character of the app that you are trying to build I am sure that you will get some specific advice from other developers of similar apps.
I’m not sure what you were expecting from 3 weeks of working with Xojo. Even thought it IS a RAD environment, it’s been my experience (15+ years using Xojo and training a bunch of people to be Xojo programmers) that new people try to make Xojo work just like their old development system. Whether that be VB6, .NET, Xcode, Xamarin, Java, php, whatever, the results are always poor. Xojo is its own dev environment, for better or worse, and there’s a Xojo way of doing things that is unique to Xojo.
I believe it takes about 6 months to become really comfortable with Xojo for a big project. I recommend that people figure out the little things their project needs (read/write a text file, connect and read/write to a database file, hierarchical control, UI design, etc) and do small, sample projects. That way the frustration level is much less and you can get some easy victories. Ask lots of questions and maybe get some training. We offer 60+ hours of Xojo video training at http://xojo.bkeeney.com/XojoTraining/ that many have found useful. With over 200 individual videos (most with project files) you can find almost everything you need to get started (including several start to finish projects).
As others have stated, plugins are merely a way, in most cases, to shortcut the learning process. There’s no need to code an entire charting/graph system if you can use the MonkeyBread ChartDirector plugin. No sense in going to the expense of creating an alternative hierarchical list if you can just use the Einhugur TreeView control. Those are but two examples of great plugins that work on Mac, Windows, and Linux that would be incredibly time consuming to develop yourself and to get working properly on all 3 desktop platforms. Since I do consulting for a living time = money and plugins are a way to save a lot of time (thus saving the client money).
Anyway, thanks for trying out Xojo. I do hope you give it another shot because it really is a good dev environment.
I’d agree with the advice to give it more time. I look at the things I can do with Xojo now that I would have had no idea how to do a few years ago. The capability of Xojo in these areas hasn’t changed, it’s just my knowledge of how to use it that has. It’s the same with all languages. I’ve been a web developer using PHP (and ASP before that) for more than 15 years and I can safely say that I am still learning new techniques in web application development every day. There are so many different ways to attack a problem I find it better to spend more time conceptualising a solution and less hammering at the keys.
On the subject of plugins, I use the full MBS suite for my apps. To be honest though, there’s only one aspect of my software that Xojo couldn’t do without those plugins. Most plugins I use purely for speed and convenience. For me it’s a simple financial calculation of time to development myself vs. cost of a plugin to accomplish the same thing.
Having said that though, my next project will be pure Xojo. Partly as a challenge, partly so I can have full control over my code base, but mainly because it’s a personal project and has no deadline!
Reasonably sized hierarchical lists are fairly easy to do to using the Xojo listbox once you understand the API.
That said there are some very common needs that these days one might reasonably expect in a RAD product (or at least are very common needs) that Xojo does not have (PDF, Zip support to name 2). The built-in reporting tool is nothing to write home about either … and with reports, Charts are a reasonably common need as well.
DB Support could use some work… and the built-in DB editor … does it still exist? Is it worth using yet?
Don’t get me wrong. I like Xojo…
But for someone is who is not a fulltime coder and trying to write software to help them on their job etc on their own dime and does not make money on it, and does not have the time and/or knowledge to create all they really need themselves, Xojo has some holes. Pros either buy plugins , or when it makes economic sense, build their own so don’t feel that as much.
For someone trying to get a specific task done who is not a pro and does not have all the time in the world or the money to spend fro plugins, the holes can be showstoppers.
Yes Xojo is a good RAD environment, and for myself I have found ways over the years to fill most of the holes that mattered to me, but I understand where is coming from.
I would have been interested in hearing what HE felt was missing.
I totally agree. I’ve railed plenty of times over the years about some of the deficiencies in Xojo and I hope they are addressed soon.
Yeah, it still exists and I still don’t recommend that anyone use it.
Yup. If he’s looking for Charts, PDF export, or full RTF support he’d have to look into the 3rd party market. Not that I expect Xojo to add these but it might be beneficial to the platform to have ‘lite’ free versions of some of the 3rd party plugins/libraries to get people started.
Xojo has not added telepathy to the framework yet so writing the code is still pretty intensive.
There are tools where you can draw a database and it magically creates all the forms/modules. However your app will forever look however they think it should look and you are limited by goofy scripting languages and terrible extensions to make it work decent.
Xojo shines because it gives you near total control, OS level declares, and true cross platform. If you don’t need true cross platform or if you want something more automatic then Xojo is not for you.
As for the extraordinary apps vs extraordinary people that’s just weird marketing speak and I don’t think anyone takes it seriously. Xojo marketing is a nice team and apparently effective but like all software teams - somewhat removed from reality.
Yeah, it still exists and I still don’t recommend that anyone use it.[/quote]
I have not seen nor used a RAD that had a good database tool in it. I would always recommend a good database tool outside of the RAD that is good (or great) with that particular database. I have several good/great ones for SQLite but don’t have a good/great one for PostgreSQL (which I am looking for). Navicat is decent but expensive.
. And I’m a bit sorry that Xojo is so disappointing, the discussion board here is really a nice place to talk.