Xojo Forum members age - why?

Off-Topic
1

[Started a new thread to keep Dave’s thread clean of discussion]

It’s no surprise at all to me that our forum’s membership has a more mature (experienced) age group.

There are several reasons for this but one of them is simply the fact that Xojo has been around for so long, when other programming environments have come and gone. There are people here, therefore, who already had a computing career of some kind, pre-REALbasic and jumped to RB as a new modern RAD environment. And there are, I would guess, quite a few of us here in our 40s like me, who were just finishing up at University when RB 1.0 appeared and it seemed like a slice of heaven after learning Modula-2/Prolog/Assembly/C/C++ etc at Uni. I took RB/RS/Xojo with me wherever I worked, from my first job at Nortel Networks, until I left to work on my own.

Microsoft’s killing classic VB is surely another big attraction - rather than having to learn a whole new environment, lost VB coders can easily switch to Xojo, and gain new targets in the process.

I’d argue there’s one more reason and that is a lot of us are sole developers - we are consultants or run our app companies - and Xojo is a natural fit for us. We don’t have the resources to have a Mac dev, a Windows dev, a database dev, a Web dev etc. So, using Xojo, it’s a little like we have other people working with us in our one-man/one-woman businesses.

I would like to see some younger people join us. I know there are notable exceptions around here in the last few years but I had hoped more young people would be joining us by now. I suspected the Pi target would do some of that for us but the penetration in Pi circles in almost non-existent. I know, because I hang out there too. The Pi is huge in education circles - my 7 year old daughter has one - and getting some Xojo recognition would bring some fresh blood to us. I hope in the next year that there will be a Pi 4 which will be capable of running the Xojo IDE reasonably comfortably. A free version of the IDE that runs and builds only on and for the Pi, would be a nice way to introduce kids to Xojo.

Fresh blood isn’t just important for the financial aspect of Xojo’s health but also because of the new ideas they bring in. I appreciate the contribution of everyone on the forum, including the guys/gals in their 20s. Technology moves so fast and what was once the norm 10, 20 or 30 years ago, is often antiquated now, and the contribution from people like @timi is hugely appreciated, as they bring a fresh perspective. (Not all new ideas are good ideas, of course.)

I know there have been moves from Xojo Inc and MBS in previous conferences, but it would be great if there was more outreach to the younger generations and more scholarships were encouraged to attend conferences.

Anyway, this was just a few thoughts over a cup of tea. As for me, this is one of the few communities that, at 40, I can feel rather young :slight_smile: It’s great to see people in their 70s and 80s here, I’m sure Xojo keeps the brain finely-tuned. I hope to be still coding at your age. Now, back to coding…

2

Frankly, I am not so interested in that kind of statistics. The forum is probably very far from being an accurate representation of the 320,000 worldwide users of Xojo. Sure, old timers like me did enjoy being able to transition from 1980’s Basic to Xojo through VB, but that may not be the general population.

This forum is, like any forum, skewed by the amount of time each of us can spend on it. It would make sense that people somewhat distanced from the rat race be more active. Hence older people.

Another effect may very well be that the huge population of programmers today are more familiar with C, Java, Php and JavaScript syntax (somewhat similar) than Basic. Hence younger people, for whatever reason, don’t even peek at Xojo.

I do not think it is so much a question of resources that may prevent an individual to use C on all platform, for instance. At least on Windows with the community version of VS, or on Mac with XCode, it actually cost much less than Xojo.

3

I know people that use xojo for a living, and that come on this forum every 1-3 year ?
so yes the forum is not representing all users at all.

4

These are all valid points. But something to consider is that not everyone uses the forum and this poll can give the wrong impression. We have seen our younger audience grow considerably over the last few years. In addition, we have also seen more females getting into Xojo which is fantastic! So, while the forum poll may be fun to do, it doesn’t fully represent the Xojo community.

5

I disagree… I think the stats are very valid.
And I don’t believe that Xojo has 320,000 ACTIVE developers… They may have 320,000 active subscriptions, which is good for Xojo from a financial point of view, or perhaps it is 320,000 who have ever paid a subscription, I don’t know.

BUT… what I have found it that the people that are FORUM active should represent the subscription base as a whole from a statistical point of view.

I know for a fact (being a forum member for 10+ years now) that we have had some “younger” members… but I also recall a few of them that were overly entitied by their parents and only had an Xojo subscription because they believed they already were the next great developer, but still could not write “Hello World”. And that it was that attitude that caused many to leave. There is still evidence of that, when topics are created that ask questions so elementary that it is obvious the poster had never even seen the Language Ref, or other supplied documents.

What I would ask Dana… How do you know the “younger audience” has grown? Since you have no information about your subscribers that would tell you that, other than an expression on this forum.

Besides… the Topic is “AVERAGE AGE OF FORUM USERS”… not “AVERAGE AGE OF XOJO CLIENTS” :smiley:

6

Dave, your thread is about the age of Xojo users.

This thread has somewhat a larger perspective. Thank you Gavin :slight_smile:

Thank you Dana, for chiming in. I am sure you have fascinating statistics that we all would love to hear about.

7

Well, that’s great news. Obviously we don’t have the datapoints you guys have, so this is good to hear. (I’ll give you one more - my 7 year old daughter is quite interested in Xojo, and loves dragging controls onto the layout editor. I have pointed her at the Apple HIG but she hasn’t paid much attention to that yet. But we’ve worked on a few Hello Worlds and little random guessing games etc.)

8

Dave, those are your assumptions and I was already afraid of something like this would happen. A big reason why I don’t disclose any privacy matters on a public list. Btw, a survey you initiated should have been private and also should have been sanctioned.

9

I think this is only a little off topic but I haven’t had a place where a couple of thoughts of mine would fit.

As one of the above average age here I came from an ALC & Cobol (with a little PL/1) background. When I was working for a company rather than my self, it was during the time that Basic was mostly a language to teach kids some of the fundamentals of programming. It was interpreted, not compiled, so it was not a practical language for business. I completely get it that basic has grown up but I still carry that mind set.

So my point is, I was really glad when RealBasic became RealStudio, I was less enthusiastic about the current name Xojo. When I bring it up, I mostly get HUH? What’s that? But that’s okay, I really like Xojo even if I have a whole lot to learn yet about using OOP to the best advantage.

just my 2c

10

As Winston Churchill said: “I only believe in statistics that I doctored myself”

11

Fine… Dana … DELETE MY POST please…

12

I think Dave has good point. IMO this forum does represent a good portion of the average Xojo user.

Of course many do lie about there age :wink: :wink:

13

Whatever data one gathers by a show of hands in a public forum has as much validity as knowing who will play darts in a pub. But sure, anything is valid within the confines of the parameters of the experience.

Does the forum really represent a “good portion” of the average Xojo user ? We have no idea who is the average Xojo user. Reason why I am real grateful for Dana disclosing a few details. Noticeably the increasing presence of females, which this forum does not show.

17,626 members over 320,000 is not terribly significant.

14

Taking a data set from a < 24 hour period and jumping to huge conclusions based on those figures is quite frankly a waste of time.

Like many things in life, it only represents the vocal minority.

The more that get into Xojo the better, dissecting and pigeonholing them does nothing to aid the situation.

15

The users of the forum is really only a tiny slice of the overall user base.
There are lots of users that never post here - they log in to grab the latest alpha or beta and thats the extent of their activity.
I see this all the time in Feedback where we get reports from people who I’ve never seen post on the forums or NUG.

I personally know several like this and have met them at XDC more than once - yet I’ve never seen them on the forums (or NUG)

16

Don’t worry about it… I cannot close or delete that thread… So if someone at Xojo will do so… I’m done
I will be putting that thread and this one on IGNORE
I apologize for p*ssing people off.

17

I think you need reread Dana’s post
She’s not pissed or any such thing
She is just pointing out that the forums are not as representative the entire community as people assume they are and that there are lots of people who do not use the forums
And then lots of people who do use the forums who wont reply to the poll because they don’t want their personal information shown

18

Sorry, that’s wrong.

19

In what way is it not right ?
Forums membership is listed as 17627
Not sure what the current active license count is
Hehe its on the home page duh ! (xojo.com) 320,000

IF those figures are correct thats so that makes the forums users about 5.5%

20

Modern statistics can predict things just by asking a well selected but representative small group. So it is not impossible in doing so here but of course data is relative esp. when trying just to count forum numbers. Dave there is no need to be pissed off nor is your thread useless. We got the avarage age of active forum members.