Skip to main content

Living with Xojo

Xojo is a fantastic, integrated development environment. With it, you can do multi-platform software development. I think there is no faster way to go from an idea to a running prototype. For MacOS, iOS, Windows, Android, WebApps. It can do it all.

Xojo as an organization, itself has learned to develop fast. Something they have been struggling with in the past.

The disadvantage of the focus of Xojo on continuous improvement with a relatively small organization causes some challenges in the users development process. Frequently it is impossible to finish a project after upgrading to a newer IDE version without redoing major parts of the code.

Xojo when it starts up, gives a nice Recent Projects menu, where you can select a project you are working on and want to continue to work on. It does not separate in what version of Xojo you work on for what project, however. So if you have to maintain production code in an older version, the only save way too work is to have separate machines for that.

I've learned the hard way NOT to install the newest update of Xojo on my Mac. So that I don't open project files with the newest version. Start working on it and get stuck after routinely saving the project with changes, and later in the production environment find that there are bugs to deal with. Bugs, by the way, can also be improvements what make old version code incompatible.

There are three ways to deal with this flaw in the Xojo IDE:

  • To have separate machines for code in production maintenance and new code.
  • To finish projects with the existing IDE version and schedule (when time is available) IDE maintenance to update to a newer version.
  • Use Xojo only for prototyping and do the final build in a dedicated (Mac/Windows/iOS/Android/Web)App development IDE.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Brussels could do a better job

Abstract Legal systems should enable good public services, not just complicate things. We (the people) don't really need governments, we need good public services. These days, too little is done to ensure a level playing field for companies on a global scale. Enabling big companies to lock buyers into their influence sphere and squeeze as much as possible money out of them. Below three examples where our public services fail. Selling hardware with preinstalled OS should be illegal If a consumer buys a smartphone or a personal computer, it is always sold with an operating system preinstalled. This fixes the consumer into the commercial influence sphere of the hardware seller. Apparently, the Brussels bureaucracy is not really interested in a plane playing field that enables European suppliers to participate in the smartphone and desktop computing market. Would Brussels really be interested in a plane playing field, it would not be allowed to sell end-user devices (smartphones and pe...
Post a Comment
Read more

The end of Windows is underway

Thanks to the virtual machine (VM) revolution, slowly but surely UX (unix like) operating systems are becoming the defacto industry standard. All Apple OS-es are UX based. Android is UX based. All internet is UX based. The whole Linux family of OS-es are UX based. The only remaining exception is Windows. The virtual machine revolution and cloud based (UX) computing is nail in the coffin for Windows however. Now  Google acquired Cameyo and with that brings Windows apps to ChromeOS. It is only a matter of time and all the functionality only available on Windows will be available as a SaaS or ( first  in VM mode) on Linux. All companies (for example SolidWorks ) start to offer SaaS, forced by the market. They feel the pressure  of OnShape . Most development work is already done on Linux based machines. Windows is also becoming legacy because there is extra cost involved to make apps for Windows compatible  with the newest generation of hardware (linke Tablets). This is...
Post a Comment
Read more

Inconsistency in legislation

Good BDO Netherlands July 20 writes about the privacy paradox between PSD2 and the GDPR . PSD2 is a new European directive aimed at payment transactions in Europe. The law has five goals: Competition in the European payment market. Make innovations in the payment system better possible. Protect consumers better. Increase the security of payments. Contribute to a single European payment market. "However, where PSD2 requests open access to (confidential) transaction data, the GDPR imposes stricter requirements with regard to allowing this data and security to be shared." This is just one of the examples showing that the legislative process has completely got out of hand. How come? What is the quality of legislation? And is there something to do about it? How it comes In a word "islands". Too many people are involved in the legislative process in Europe. It certainly concerns thousands and perhaps tens of thousands of people. These work for different governments, diffe...
Post a Comment
Read more