Interesting (and a bit concerning) article in TidBits: Six Reasons Why iOS 13 and Catalina Are So Buggy
And Xojo… note these paragraph - that seems so much like what we’re seeing with Xojo:
[quote=459647:@Jürg Otter]And Xojo… note these paragraph - that seems so much like what we’re seeing with Xojo:
Overloaded Feature Lists Lead to Schedule Chicken
Regressions Get Fixed. Old Bugs Get Ignored[/quote]
I work in-house as a developer for a company with 20,000+ employees spread over 80 countries. The number of dedicated software developers is very small (even minuscule), compared to the rest of the staff. And we run into these same problems by the shear weight of demand for progress. So to me, it’s not surprising at all that a relatively small group like Team Xojo may also face some of these same dilemmas.
What is surprising is that a huge technology company like Apple is also exhibiting these same problems, publicly.
That really concerns me, because even though I started my career as a Windows-based developer, I’ve grown to prefer Mac hardware for my main work machines, because a Mac allows me to run both macOS & Windows (via Bootcamp). This must also concern many on this forum who heavily rely on Mac owners for their customer base.
I usually replace my main machine about every 3 or 4 years and time is approaching for replacing my mid-2015 Macbook Pro. But with all the hardware issue for Macbooks in the more recent generations, I’m thinking of a Mac Mini for my next purchase (if they ever get Catilina stable enough, that is).
For my part, I’m willing to cut Xojo some slack and continue to support them, because I can appreciate their position.
But many will be up-the-creek-without-a-paddle if Apple continues to slide like this…
Though, luckily Xojo also runs on Windows 
The difference between Apple and Xojo is just the scale of the issue
Apple might have 100x the devs but they have the same problems - just 100x of them
EDIT : I find the quote at the bottom appropos
Lol, I like the quote. That hits the nail on the head alright.
[quote=459713:@Norman Palardy]The difference between Apple and Xojo is just the scale of the issue
Apple might have 100x the devs but they have the same problems - just 100x of them :)[/quote]
I have no experience with working a truly large team of developers like that, but small teams are another story. On a smaller team you get the added sarcastic bonus of not only feeling pressure to perform - but doing so, knowing there are no other resources to fall back on when your work load becomes overwhelming and you need extra help. But I guess the same can apply to large tech companies too, if departments or projects don’t share their resources.
I’m not speaking for Team Xojo, just my own first-hand experience. Software developer burnout is a serious matter, so I’m especially sympathetic is all.
I’ve worked on reasonably large teams and small teams and the experience has been largely similar and only different in quantity not quality of the burn out
On one team of 100 it was just more people feeling this way rather than feeling substantially different because it was a large team
They’re doing a very good job given their resources. It’s always amazing to see what even a small group of Developers can achieve.
What I like in our company is that the schedule with required features is being planned so that there hardly ever is a deadline looming. And if so, better wait until something is ready for prime time. So there aren’t too many “schedule chickens”. And it’s intended that each developer has about one day per week available just for bugfixing and implementing small requested features (by browsing our Feedback system in his/her own, and pick out what’s of interest or related to an area where one is developing a planned feature anyway). That way many of these little customer reported quirks are getting fixed/improved along the way, which otherwise would probably get categorized as “not that important - new features first, that can wait or never be looked at again”.
That makes both developers and customers happy 
I’m more convinced than ever that I must be living in a parallel universe, because what you describe @Jürg Otter is nothing like where I work.
I envy you, sincerely.
Complexity growth is not specific to Apple. I am experiencing it, as my apps grow in features, and expectedly, exhibit new bugs.
I don’t know if it is schedule chicken, but I do tend to prefer working on new features, rather than fixing bugs.
And I am a team of one single individual, CEO, coder, cleaning lady and salesman 
Fortunately, Xojo does not have that many bugs, so at least that is out of the way…
I prefer to keep my bug list near zero. I can’t focus if there are bugs flying around.
My main app now has one known bug from a new feature that was released last week. I also have a couple reports in my error reporting system. I need to see if I can reproduce them.
LOL
Awesome concept.
Same here.
Long time ago, Apple had this motto: Time to marked.
The only missing part was a rock solid ".
Added later:
About my bugs: if I run many times into one (of my) bug(s) and no idea for new feature is running in my head at the momment, I squah it immediately, because it hurts me. That is a personnal matter. Do you realize ? That bug hurts me ! I have to stop iut right now (if I can
).
This does not seems to be possible for everyone.
I am still sitting on my i7 MacBook Pro Retina Mid 2014 with 16 GB RAM and 1 TB SSD and see no successor on the horizon with any advantage. There are only disadvantages namely the keyboard, the playtouchbar, no SD card drive, less external ports for a unreasonable price tag.
I am working with several systems but macOS was and still is my main developing enviroment. And it seems that this Mac and Mojave will be my last piece of Apple. The timeline for a switch to Debian + Gnome is set as soon as purism will show their 2nd generation or mark 2 of their Librem Phone.
History is repeating: 2007/2008 I’ve done the same with Windows and PocketPC/MDA Phone.
Catalavista Apple
I forgot to note that I changed because the previous MacBooks crashed and I exchanged them just before the 3 years extension waranty.
It was not a personal change.
Now, I need a second laptop and I too do not saw any replacement hardware.
8MB RAM / 250GB SSD machines are crap: not only these are not filling my actual needs, but they will not in the next years too (that will be worse).
I actually have a 250 GB SSD and I am always fighting for space n the boot disk
and I recall my first Apple //c with a 5.25 floppy disk (143KB) in 1985 How I was happy when I add a 800 KB extenal 3.5" floppy !!!
MacOS was less buggy then.
I’ve done all the hardware switchovers and eaten the cost for a thunderbolt 3 dock as opposed to the thunderbolt 2 one I bought several years ago. I have my touch bar set to OS defaults only so I can access the buttons I actually use volume, mute and skip this stupid song I somehow still have in my programming playlist I dont care about any of that. But when you decide to force me to fix hundreds of hours of work on things that werent broken yesterday then youve got a problem. My advice to my users is dont, under any circumstances, update to Catalina. Dont even imagine that I can support it yet. Dont bother to report a single bug if you do because I am not even half way done fixing all the stuff that worked great until they broke it. This is a horrific situation and has me working equally hard to get it working on Catalina as I am to delivering versions that will run equally well on Windows and the Raspberry Pi. I am more angry now than at any time since the original OSX Beta versions.
In iOS 12 I had a perfectly working Mail app. Not so much in iOS 13 where mails pop back up again, notifications are broken and the list of mails is never updated.
Just sad.
I was thinking it was about time to get a new iMac as the one released earlier this year as it would be a big upgrade…
My current one is still running fine (Late 2013 i7 GeForce GTX 780M 32GB NON-retina) but it’s likely past time to pass it on in the family to someone who is using my old late 27" 2009 iMac i7 that can only go to High Serra for which support runs out next year.
I was going to see what the Black Friday and Cyber mondays sales looked like at the major resellers to decide… but getting it then would mean HAVING to use Catalina this year… and that may mean it’s better not to buy this year…
I’m the same.
I’ve mentioned in a previous career I was a “roadie”, but I only use that term because most people don’t know the inner workings of a job like that. In fact I was a Stage Lighting technician (for neary 20 years). And as I electrical/electronics technician I spent a lot of time trouble-shooting problems. As much as new software features can be interesting work, I actually enjoy trouble-shooting bugs.
But a lot of people don’t see bugs as a priority where I work. So I usually spend my off-hour personal time fixing bugs, for my own personal sanity and satisfaction. Ugh.
you can buy a “brand new refurbished” from apple that has the same warranty etc but that can still boot at least one or more older versions
its a thought
In the last 3 years, been there 3 times. Two times I felt like in a mix of tired and depressed due to a kind of working 7 days a week under pressure, right now I’m recovering from the last time, too much pressure and tired; real burn out, this one was very hard, but, as always (until now :D), I’m back to the tracks.
One wonders if Rick and Norman are bothers…