I was hoping that this ability would enable us to get issues that matter to us resolved. So in my mind it would work like below.
We report an issue or feedback request.
Xojo evaluate that case, and give it a minimum requirement of points, for example they say “3”.
You have two points left with your account. So you “spend” them on this case.
Either next year, you spend one of your points, or I run into the same problem and so I spend 1 of my points on the case, or you decide that this case is too important, so you purchase another point to spend on the case.
The case has now met the requirement, Xojo then accepts this and arranges to fix the issue for the next release.
It can go the other way too, so lets say I file a report for Xojo to build Catalyst applications that work on iPad & Mac (I know I know), Xojo determine that it requires 15 points (arguments sake). I spend all 5 of my points on it, I can then either purchase another 10 or wait for a couple of years to accumulate the additional 10… Or other people believe that this would benefit them and so combined we all spend enough to make it happen.
Xojo still get to use Feedback to gauge what the masses want, but it also means that as individual developers, we can still get the issues that matter to us resolved.
Like you, I have a bunch of things I care about, that just sit there in feedback as they’re too specific to my needs and so will never get enough of the general Xojo populations votes to make it happen.
I am sure it’s not perfect and there’s bound to be scenarios that I am unable to think about right now.
You do realize that this means you are paying for bug fixes (i.e. fixes to things that maybe were broke between versions - e.g. regressions) - in other words you are paying for the same thing twice. And you do realize that there is no guarantee that if you pay for a point the bug will be fixed - so you could just be lining someone else’s pockets with nothing in return. Yeah - no thanks that cure is worse than the problem (and I mean that with the utmost respect cause I think you do some crazy cool stuff).
I wouldn’t mind spending money for bug fixes. I do that with Christian anyways. Doing that with Xojo doesn’t work or how did the crazy expensive version of Xojo work out for anyone?
Point noted and I received this with sincerity (thanks for saying I do some crazy stuff).
Perhaps we can continue to keep spit balling until someone can come up with a fairer system. As it is right now, someone can pay $99 every few years and be pleased with how many of their bugs get fixed (because they encounter bugs that a lot of people do) or we can spend $2,000 every year and not get bugs fixed because they’re too obscure. Disclaimer, I don’t spend $2,000 every year.
Yes, that seems unusual. The companies we deal with at work only charge extra money if we want them to add new features. They could also charge for bug fixes if we want them to fix a bug in an older version of their software that they no longer support. Fixing bugs in the current version of the software is always included in the license & support fee.
For Xojo, having bugs has become the new ‘normal’. It isn’t. The phrase ‘every tool has that’ comes up way to much. They don’t. At least not in the amount and duration before a fix comes out compared to Xojo.
Maybe a 6-12 months period where the sole focus is on bug fixing can get Xojo out of this mess. It is a decade old problem they have that won’t be fixed overnight and no point system can ever solve this. It is a stopgap at best and gives no guarantee something will be done.
Fixing bugs is not sexy, I know. But I myself don’t dare release something without taking a big chunk of time doing it. It is a big part calculated into my timeline. Bug fixing is the key to success and satisfied users in the long run.
And age of a bug is a HUGE thing. IF the choice of a point system would be used, it really isn’t that hard to use this as ‘a’ factor in calculating priority. We use a similar thing when users add a ‘task’ to a queue done by our software. They are submitted with a priority and this priority increases by time so that even the ones with the lowest priority eventually come on top.
There are companies that promise to fix your problem/bug within a short timeframe (for example within 72 hours) for an yearly extra fee. How many problems/bugs they will fix (3, 5 or 10) for you per year depends on the height of the fee.
You can see that it’s all a balancing act. If it were as easy as don’t add new features until all bugs are fixed, we’d do that but it’s not that easy.
Yes it is, sorry but it IS actually that simple.
If Xojo had done exactly that, the majority of users would be quite satisfied because the bug count would be fewer than thousands (or tens of thousands), what CORE features that Xojo DID offer would be rock solid and never stop the creative music, whatever new features the market desired to pay extra for would be provided by plug-in developers and Xojo would be a household name as far as development goes.
It IS actually that simple, and the fact that it has been done the other way, and resulted in a tsunami of bugs in the core API and incomplete new features that also introduce yet even more bugs, and that this has been compounding for year after year to the point that it may be too late to ever catch up, proves that it was not working. The fact that this conversation even needs to take place (over and over), or that many are fervently disappointed or even walking away over incomplete features AND multi-year bugs also proves that it does not work in the real world and is not sustainable.
"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” - Albert Einstein.
The status quo will not fix this, it is in fact the very cause of this. Why is it so difficult to embrace that adding incomplete features to an incomplete and very buggy core API is a disastrous case of putting lipstick on a pig, and to compound the felony, the pig itself has swine influenza and is not fit for human consumption?
Please, how is this such a departure from reason and logic that I am just missing the boat and very far off base?
Yes we did.
The whole new thing with communication between HTMLViewer and JavaScript came out of some feature requests of us (just as one of many examples).
Case in point, I just got this in the mail with my new Pi today…
Great exposure, and if a new Pi user fired up Xojo and started to build linux applications using the core API features, would they be satisfied with the product? Could they even report their bugs or issues using the official feedback channels?
Imagine if Xojo Linux had been 98% cheddar BEFORE its release, and that most bugs were fixed within a reasonable time frame…
Xojo would DOMINATE THE MARKET… full stop.
But under the current system, the reviews have not been kind, and that’s being nice.
In general I would prefer a bug-free feedback system that let’s me rank issues before they get reviewed. Otherwise situations like my current top cases occur:
Maybe interaction of our time investment should be rewarded with additional points.
For example @Mike_D reported a lot of bugs in the 2020r1 testing, for each reproduction (and therefor time investment) one could get additional feedback points, giving xojo less work and therefore more time to fix other bugs.
So time on feedback cases are more like bug bounties. Inviting people to invest time to provide crucial information. Just like others have more knowledge of certain topics to provide Xojo with more background information to bring a solution.
But please stop closing cases after 10 days forcing people to invest time, which is a thing Xojo should do on investigation of cases.
Nice idea but all the points won’t help if they do not review the case. I opened case 60679 in June along with a test project and everything but so far nobody reacted in any way… Maybe Xojo does not need a new feedback app but rather more/dedicated staff to work on it.
I agree that you shouldn’t be able to wind up with a situation where the same case is listed twice. Not sure how that happened. Please do add a case in Feedback about this if you haven’t already.
Sounds perfect! Revenue goes up as product quality goes down!!.
I agree, this is not a good solution. I also don’t like the idea of giving different users having different amount of points. Bugs should be squashed based on their severity and how many users they impact, not the amount the user paid for the product. I get having a premium support option, but that is different.
What we know so far:
For the user, bugs are time consuming to report and many users have reported simply giving up on doing it because:
A) They stay in limbo too long with no activity.
B) They can’t be reproduced by Xojo and are summarily closed.
The bug list is large enough to make it difficult for Xojo to prioritize what bugs to work on first.
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Geoff’s initial proposition was using like buttons. But why can’t we use User Verified and User not Verified. This would tell them a lot of information and the cases would simply stay open gathering data then pushed to the top when they exceed the median values.
Users don’t have to file new reports for ones that were closed as not reproduceable. They just find the one and click user verified.
The data drives Xojo’s decision process.
No wrangling with points, etc.
Evangelists and Xojo fans can spend some time each month testing for Xojo providing, feedback.
Keep the points system and factor in # of people following a case and favoriting the case into the total points.
Points + 1x # of Followers + 2x # of Favorites = Total Points
You could also add a “like” which is similar to a follow without update notifications, but does someone really care about the case if they don’t want updates about it? Xojo could additionally add weight for things like “# of distinct people who commented on case” or “extra points based on date range of oldest and newest comment” (Long interaction period) or “+10 for showstopper/no-workaround bugs”. But I think making the ranking system incorporate existing process rather than changing too much is ideal
could get additional feedback points, giving xojo less work and therefore more time to fix other bugs.