Why use Web 2.0?

We appreciate feedback. Listening to feedback is being receptive to it by definition. Choosing what action to take is a separate matter entirely.

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Absolutely, after all it’s your business. But IMHO it wouldn’t be a shame to simply admit from the beginning on that the old version is no longer supported. That is an honest statement, one that can be technically justified, which enables resources to work on other stuff, etc. It is then a decision for your customers how that one has to deal with and to align with the customers of your customers. But it is then IMHO a clear statement, and not one where everyone can somehow imagine what the statement really means.

After all, you then have a clear statement that you can give to your customers and as a developer using XOJO, we could explain to our customers why they have to adjust their roadmap, change strategy, toolsets, basically putting all options on the table and finding a solution.

But as it is, we devs have to work with workarounds, promise things to our customers that you (and consequently we) can’t / don’t want to keep.
One can do that once, then you are unmasked as a liar and you need a plan B, and with common sense that is unfortunately a different platform. Out of common sense because Web 1 cannot easily (IMHO not at all) be ported to Web 2.

Edit: corrected lier to liar.

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But we do support it. Users contact us with questions and issues. We help them as best we can. That’s what technical support is. If we said it’s no longer supported, users would assume they can’t contact us with questions about Web 1.

Technicial support usually means answering questions. Software updates or maintenance updates are the terms typically used to indicate that a user can expect to be able to get updates for a particular version. We have never done that for older releases because the percentage of users needing them is usually not large enough to justify the cost. I wish that were not the case because I enjoy meeting the needs of as many customers as possible but unfortunately that doesn’t always work out.

Xojo sunset the product Web1, when you released Web2. If we can agree that Web 1 is a dead (but supported) horse, I need to buy the new horse Web2. That was a fact from day one, though prior to Web 2 there was a plan of a whatsoever migration path.

This consequently means that I have to tell my customer that I need more budget. As a decent good enough businessman, I have of course priced in a potential migration but for sure not a complete re-design. The cost for switching to a new architecture can’t of course be absorbed by my company alone, it needs resources from the customer side as well. Not only money, but mainly meetings, man power, alignments, test, etc. Trust me: big joy on their side, especially if they don’t like the bootstrap approach!

Even if I would stay with Web1, the forum support is diluted all the sudden, as Web2 and Web2 are mixed into the same category. How to deal with that?

But I don’t have to be petty, let’s forget that, it’s been chewed through a thousand times.

I’m the last one who is against change (reason why I embraced Web 2 from day one but I decided not to migrate the old stuff!), I’m only slightly sniffled when change is forced out of the blue and the new product in particular is still (IMHO) half-baken. But here too, I accept that I’m one of the rare sufferers and that all the “issues” in the system are apparently only “coincidence”. I am not even talking about outdated libraries, still used in the new tool and potentially being a security risk. And I could complain about incomplete Web SDK docs (though I made my way through own plugins), or missing examples, etc.

My question that remains: what’s next? Will there be Web3 in 2 years ttime hat forces me to start over again? You surely won’t tell us.

Hence, I can only agree that the quote above is correct. One has to make the decision and I made it. It certainly hurts both sides to realize that they have placed their trust in the wrong party.

So I can only apologize for being such a difficult customer who simply does not understand how to use certain tools sensibly and effectively and not almost crashed his business in that process. Again, feedback is a gift, don’t shoot the messenger(s).

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Thanks Jeannot, you have a gift for expressing things clearly.

I don’t get it.

To summarize:

  • Many customers express their distress after abandoning the web framework and a strong investment in it. Sometimes it is possible to try to migrate to a version 2, but often the cost is too high to switch to a new framework with a very different client side. Sometimes we have developed every day for 10 years on this version to build an advanced app. Imagine that the IDE is developed with the first web framework.

  • After all this concern expressed on the forum by your customers, you publish a blog post to reassure us. In this article, you state that if there are issues that break our applications, such as OS or web browser updates, you will do everything you can to fix the problem.

  • Greg tells us that in the real world, in practice, you probably won’t be able to fix the problem, for the technical reasons he states. At the same time we understand that Geoff’s previous statement was not accompanied by any technical precautions behind it. Apparently, no machines, disk images, or anything else, have been secured to ensure / facilitate possible technical updates. Of course, it is not possible to ensure an LTSC for every old version of Xojo. But here it was still a very important break.

  • Now you say that it was really just a matter of providing answers to questions. But, apparently, if OS or web browser updates break our applications, or for example if security protocols used in the framework become obsolete, it will actually be very difficult to make a technical update to this version of Xojo.

Keep in mind that the blog post you made was not isolated. It was in response to many distressing messages from your customers on the forum. Not messages worrying about not having answers to questions anymore. But messages worrying about the sustainability of our applications. Your blog post has calmed the crowd indeed. And all our reactions that followed in the same threads, in which you and Greg participated, among others, clearly showed that we were reassured about your ability to update this version of Xojo if needed. It’s really surprising that in reading all of these messages, no one in your company has said internally something like “hey, we have a problem here. Customers think we’ll be able to do updates to this version of Xojo if there’s a problem. And, in fact, it will probably be very difficult. It would be a fair thing to warn our customers, even if it’s difficult.

In short, we’ve gone from a “If something goes wrong, it’s likely that Xojo will come up with a technical solution. Maybe they won’t make it and it will be too difficult, there’s always a risk, but they should be able to do it” to “If a problem happens, Xojo will try to find a solution, a little bit, but they probably won’t make it.”.

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Thank you Olivier.

This will be my last post here, but you know where to find me.

https://xojo.jeannot-muller.com/xojo-my-final-review-c24371908736

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What an irresponsible statement from the CEO. Do you know what technical support means.

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Amazing the irrational amount of love to hate relationship some have with Xojo.

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Yes, I know what it means. When companies say they provide technical support, that means they answer questions about their product or service. That’s separate from providing updates to their product.

As much as text is a great way to communicate, sometimes being able to discuss something face to face is more productive. To that end, I would be happy to set up a time this coming week to discuss web 1/web 2 on Zoom for those that are interested.

If you’re interested, reply and let me know. It will likely be at 1PM CT since we have found that works best globally. Tuesday would be ideal I think.

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yes, it’s true!

It’s a good idea. In my case, I don’t speak English (I write with the help of Google/DeepL), but I’m sure others can have a fruitful discussion with you, for example @Lars_Lehmann , @Jeannot_Muller , @Christian_Schmitz , @Ivan_Tellez , and others of course!

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I’m glad to hear that the translation technology is good enough to make it possible for you to participate here in English. I remember a long time ago talking to a friend Japanese friend. I gave him a message that I had translated into Japanese using Google. He said it was unintelligible. At the time, it was far better going to English than from English apparently. I guess it’s far better now.

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I appreciate your answers full of pragmatism, and often with an implicit call to keep your cool. Don’t generalize your case though. Not all situations are the same. In the case of a small BtoB company whose whole activity is based on a single complex ERP developed with the web framework for more than 10 years, it’s complicated, even waiting for it not to work. Because it will take more than a few months to repair (if it is possible, and we have seen that it is unlikely) or migrate. There are hundreds of business customers of the company who expect us to provide continuity of service.

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Yes, progress has been slow, but now it is more and more effective! The competition from DeepL has helped things along too. And perhaps translation is less effective with non-Latin languages. In my case, all my messages are written with DeepL, and I sometimes do a double check with Google, with a new translation in the other direction, to check and adapt.

Thank you, I assume I’m not meant by the invitation, since I’m no longer a customer and that won’t change in the foreseeable future. But since some suspect that I’m still being addressed, I’ll answer a last time:

Web 1 will not be further developed, but we can still ask questions by phone or via hello@xojo.com (called “support”). We probably shouldn’t open “Issues” because that only blocks resources, if old bugs are no longer being fixed anyway. I got the message from day one, though your statements at that time left (on purpose?) room for “interpretation”.

However, if there is an interest from Xojo Inc.

  • to learn why pros cannot simply migrate from Web 1 to Web 2,
  • what stumbling blocks our customers see,
  • why some of our customers doubt our sanity because those customers are now feeling badly advised by us in the past,

then I can imagine that a few veterans might be willing to attend.

On the other hand, there have already been such talks in the past with no perceived change in attitude.

Personally, I like asynchronous communication, and while written communication is more cumbersome and time-consuming, and sometimes not as precise, it is known to be more sustainable than any undocumented verbal promises / comments.

Virtual meetings and calls are by nature most often not sustainable at all.

For example, I have written promises to my customers that the new Web 2 will fix bugs known from Web 1 and that we had to wait for the new release together. As a reminder: Web 1 didn’t get much love long before Web2 was in testing!

After the birth of Web 2, I had to write to the same customers that the new product works completely different, looks different and of course contains new bugs.

Believe me, I wish I hadn’t put that in writing back then but run a virtual meeting. Consequently I think I understand what you have in mind, but I doubt that it will benefit anyone. There is a reason why most contracts are in written form.

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I won’t attend either @Geoff_Perlman, but thanks for that offer. We had a personal conversation already and you said the same things to as you wrote on Blog „we will provide support to you as soon there are breaking changes in the OS or web browsers.“

What I didn’t understood at this point, what you actually meant with „support“. We two have a deep difference here in our understanding of „Support“.

My perception until the last week was also that you will try, or at least will be able to update the last Web1-IDE when necessary.

You stated, that you definitely won’t do that and that you’re hardly able to.

That is the answer I need, there’s nothing more to discuss. It just tells us the direction we have to head and that we need to hurry up. Lesson learned.

Thanks for the clear statements. Even bad messages are often better than half baked ones.

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In the blog post (Yes, We Still Support Your Web 1.0 Projects – Xojo Programming Blog), I said:

“Having said that, should you discover that your app is failing in some way due to an OS or web browser update, please contact us and we will do what we can do resolve the issue.”

That continues to be true.

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You would absolutely be welcome as would anyone interested in this topic. Written communication has its place of course but it leaves out a lot. Face to face meetings can always be summarized in text afterwards if necessary.

I came from VB and 10 years ago I decided to migrate more than 15 years of codding and products to Xojo.
Big decision and huge migrating job.
I have the chance to move from VB to .Net but I preffered not to it.
With Xojo I had the chance to continue my business with a very familiar programming language, improving my products during all these years, and adding web versions.
Web 1 was so simmilar to desktop ones that for all those years and also today I believe that my decision was the very rigth one.
This kind of discussion/oppinions make me fill quite unconfortable and worried because we have a quite small but a great community, and discussing about company policies is not productive.
I do what I believe is the best for my own company, and Xojo Inc polices are the ones they believe are the best for them and also for the majority of developers (not for all… that is impossible)
I do not move yet my web apps from Web 1 to Web 2. May be when I start doing so I will have to deal with similar problems to the ones many of the ones of you had already deal with.
Probably after reading all this post, I will have to develope web apps from scratch and I will not be happy about.that.
When I migrated from VB to Xojo, I do receive lot of support from the Xojo team and also from the community, and I am sure that I will continue receiving the same in the process to Web 2.
And of course I would like that Xojo could have the chance to give me a simple path to do so, but I understand that for a technical or an economical reasons they couldn’t.
So, not trying to private anyone to say what feels and wants. to say, I would suggest to all the nice people of this community to expend the time looking for a more possitive an colaborative understanding that Xojo Inc is doing what it feel better for them and also for all developers that, with total freedom decided to use this programming language.
I am sure that Xojo could understand the.large cost developers have to migrate from web1 to web 2, and developers could understand that economically speaking is not convinient for Xojo Inc to correct all bugs known from Web 1, but could be a middle point where escencial needs of developers and cost of attending that needs, could joint. In my particular case I could accept to pay an extra license cost in order to suppot some Xojo expenses on improving escencial aspects of Web 1.
Just an idea that could represent a win-win situation.
(Sorry for my english)

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