Xojo is technical dept

Hi Karen,
Pascal…
Never forget the END…
At the last line…
BR Rainer

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All of the above languages have been built on C

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image

USE VAR!!

Are you sure that it is only a suggestion? :thinking:

I had my pascal days in the 90’s, but I do use Pascal this days for the inno installers. Last time I had to write some Pascal Scripting on the installer as a workaround for a nasty xojo bug that happens when you try to close the xojo app to install an update. :sweat_smile:

As Dim is not deprecated, it effectively is. Not deprecating it means there is no intension of removing it from the language

And if they ever do remove it, a simple search and replace will take care of that… (i have been translating the other way API 2 → API 1 to replace Var with Dim ;))

-Karen

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True, Brian.

C is the father of all.

The most important thing about a language is the result of the compilation. The simpler and more efficient this is, the better the result.

The ability of a language has everything to do with its ability to generate binary code. The cleaner and more efficient it is, the faster your applications will be.

A great example of this is the following:
The best tool for developing Web pages is not Visual Studio, it is WebFlow (in my opinion). Since it generates extremely clean HTML. At least among the tools that currently exist.

Who said anithing about Dim being deprecated or removed?

I just pointed out the irony that now that “nobody writes pascal”, they “insists” on using something pascal like instead of the original Basic like Dim. :upside_down_face:

Well the cleanest would be HTML. CSS, JavaScript
But in talking “web sites”
For talking RAD that is another topic

Sure, I still make extensive use of the old MacCrafters’ “pList Class for RealBasic”, and have made some mods to it, and I’ve also made some mods to Kaju to suit my purposes. I tend to think of that more as “code-sharing” than “open source”, but maybe that’s a meaningless distinction. A project as vast as KiCad or Xojo (if it were open-source) or Linux, though, needs serious sustained effort from dedicated people who are virtually full-time anyway, as well as top management to guide the project. KiCad has funding through CERN and The Linux Foundation and donors; I wonder how an open-source Xojo would get its funding?

Ask RedHat :wink:

When I was doing this for a living, I had a source code policy that worked very well for me and my clients: Pure and simple, they always had access to the source code (I always left a current copy on their site), and I got paid accordingly. If they became unhappy with my work, they could kick me off the job, and hire someone else to take over. That was fine, because if they weren’t happy with my work, then I didn’t want to be working for them anyway.

Ironically, it was the knowledge that I wasn’t indispensable that helped to bring in repeat work. More businesses should keep this in mind.

The software for these projects was sufficiently customized for their use, that it had no market value outside of their organization. So, I didn’t have to worry that they would resell it to others.

There was only one occasion where my open source policy got me squeezed out of a job. A small industrial processing plant wanted to get some upgrades done to my software. Another firm came in, lowballed the price, and undercut me. It was the maintenance manager’s decision to make, even though senior management still wanted me to do the work. But they decided not to pull rank, and let the maintenance manager do what he wanted. The new software firm took 3 months to do what I could have done in two weeks (which I had promised). They also refused to give the client the source code (it had never been written into their agreement). The next time they needed work done, they came back to me. It was pretty obvious from our conversation, that they were very unhappy with the new firm. I told them that unless they could get access to the current source code, I’d have to redo everything the other firm had done previously, before I could start the new upgrades. I suggested it would be cheaper to get the other firm to do the work. I think they got the hint that I didn’t have much use for their maintenance manager’s wheeling and dealing, and we parted ways.

Exactly. Well said, Brian.

Unfortunately, most web developers start their applications with handcrafted HTML. If you see the time it takes to do it, I do not understand why the managers do nothing to decrease those times.

You can start doing it in Webflow and pass it to Visual Studio, for example.

If you require databases, XOJO is an excellent web development option.

I mention Webflow because it seems like an excellent example of a language that intends to deploy native applications. Many say that C is the best, others may say the same for C ++ or C #, but what they are trying to do, is to generate a native application.

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Even though I keep up on “trending” frameworks I stick with Xojo
Great staff, excellent engineers, great community

Cannot ask for more then that

Ask a simple question on a C++ forum and see how nice they try and help :wink:

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What a sad story, Robert.

This is repeated over and over again in companies.

Indeed, in the long run, they spend more on these details.

This should have been the initial response to the “Xojo is technical debt” topic.

Without a doubt, XOJO is an excellent tool.

It indeed needs to improve. Like any other tool.

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And, of course, this sort of thing isn’t limited to dev work. I used to do networking and systems as well. One of my customers decided to bring in a college student to make some significant changes to the network – which they totally failed at. The customer then had to pay me three times the original cost just to clean everything up.

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The point I was making was that unless it is depreciated, Xojo saying to use Var instead of Dim is essentially just a suggestion. No harm should come from continuing to use Dim.

In any case I am in the camp that thinks that most (though not all) of the changes for API 2 were pointless and unnecessarily caused backward (and eventually forward) compatibility issues… and made a lot of old code (our own and open source) problematic.

  • Karen
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It’s not sad at all. This open source policy brought me a lot of good work from companies that I really liked to work with. As for the single occasion where I lost that job, I’m not the least bit sorry. It was bound to happen after they hired that maintenance manager. I’d got along great with the previous one, but the new one was very difficult to get along with. His attitude appeared to be “I’m not happy until you’re not happy.” I’m sure that if I’d made the effort to win them back, I could still be working for them, but I had plenty of other clients that were easier to deal with. Their loss, not mine.

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Java uses Var too …

Isn’t this the issue with XOJO? Given the difficulties API2 has introduced (and who’s to say there won’t be an API3 in the future etc), the scenario that would be of concern is that a xojo app needs to be updated due to external factors (OS changes etc), and developers may be in the unenviable position of having to refactor code to adapt to new API. We all know for a fact this has already been a show stopper for some…

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I was on a job for a large electrical power utility a few years ago. When they put out the tender for a multi million dollar control system package, they specified that they would have the right to gain access to the software source code, if the supplier went out of business, or stopped supporting the product. The winning bidder was an industrial controls company with a $20 billion market cap, and they agreed to the terms. The way it was handled, was through a mutually acceptable law firm that held the source code in escrow. The legal fees were part of the contract cost (ultimately paid by the client). The client couldn’t get the source code as long as the supplier continued to support the product, but if support stopped, then they could claim the supplier was in default, and get the source code from the escrow agent.

So, there are always ways to handle the loss of support scenario.

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