Why use Web 2.0?

I had the same inverse problem two years ago when I had to start a new web project,
web2 was clearly too young, and web 1 was mature
I stuggled to decide which one to use, and choosed web 2 because of the future…
and at that time it was clear it would be almost impossible to migrate a project from web 1 to 2
because of the enormous framework differences.
I had a lot of hard times when web 2 was not working at all. it finally was ok.
I’m today glad I did not choose web 1…

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WEB1 was killed, abandoned and burried without warning. Xojo already stated that it is imposible for them to release any corrective release for it.

I did a mockup last month during the “bugbash”, I encountered like 30+ bugs just with BASIC functionality… Years afther the release and there are still tons of bugs and the lack of Control Sets. Maybe in another 2 years…

This statement is inaccurate, we did not make such an announcement.

If it works, don’t fix it. Granted, Xojo won’t do fixes to Web 1 anymore. But that platform works, unlike the sometimes green and tart Web 2.00.

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The senior developer of Web 1 and Web 2 did so in a personal capacity.

The CEO of Xojo (and founder, and only executive) has liked the message.

The Xojo’s support technician (experienced, and part of the company since the beginning) liked the message.

If this is not the case, it would be nice to reassure us please.

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Well, not an oficial Xojo anouncement, but Greg said it like this. Also the CEO said: “we do not release updates to any version of Xojo except the current shipping version” And since the current shipping version does not have web1, is not the same?

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Like I previously said - Xojo has not made any such statement about what you attributed to the company. Likes do not equal official statements.

To clarify, Greg’s statement is accurate - it’s not impossible (as you suggested) but we are not configured to be able to do it at a moment’s notice. It would take a considerable amount of work and it’s so rarely needed.

Whether it is an official statement or not plays only a subordinate role, since it is well known that official statements can always be revised and are revised.

In fact, Web1 has been stopped even though Xojo users still have Web 1.0 applications running. A migration path had been promised, which turned out to be a mistake / too complicated / too time consuming or a mixture of all.

I do understand that technically Web 1 cannot simply be “updated” quickly, as Web1 and Web2 are completely different pair of shoes, but no user would really be served by the advice of “migrating” from Web1 to Web2.

Web2 has different functions, a different design concept, etc. - most desktop-like Web1 applications are simply not portable to a bootstrap-based Web2 solution.

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@Dana_Brown

and @Ivan_Tellez is just quoting Geoff here. So this is not spreading misinformation. It is what it is, but a crystal clear statement.

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Actually, he’s not quoting me at all. He’s suggesting I said something without providing an actual quote.

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Unfortunately, I don’t see any way to achieve anything useful here anymore. Feedback is a gift, but I understand that you are not receptive to it. That’s fine. Sorry for disturbing.

Hint: your forum’s search isn’t too bad, you can easily search for your own quotes if you enter your name.

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Isn’t this your statement?

I am always surprised how Xojo Inc. behaves when it is criticized.

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That is my statement. I said we do not release updates to any version of Xojo except the current shipping version. I did not say it is impossible to do so.

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Unfortunately I have to agree with you, you won. Under the aspects listed below, it is only logical that I have to revise my euphoria and agree with you. Sad, and the change was tedious, but instructive in many respects. I won’t shed a tear. Losing trust is the worst thing that can happen to you in business and then you unfortunately have to take the consequences.

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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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