Ever since Xojo adopted the Rapid Release Model (RRM) there have been critics. The critics said that it was leading to a perpetual state of beta software. I’ve always felt that the assessment was a little too harsh but I have definitely come around to that thinking.
In my many years of Xojo consulting I played the “what version of Xojo do I dare use for this client?” For a few years the Windows drawing issues meant that one of the early Xojo 2017 releases was my gold standard. And then finally Xojo 2019 R1.1 was my gold standard for all projects. I haven’t fully tested it but I’m really hoping (and frankly needing) that Xojo 2020 R1.1 eventually becomes my new gold standard.
The shear number of new things between 2019 R1.1 and 2020 R1.1 is staggering. People are still finding bugs in API 2.0 that haven’t been addressed. And yet Xojo is on their way to major updates to iOS and adding Android, adding Helpers and who knows what else.
Feedback is broken for intents and purposes. The top 20 list is all feature requests with the exception of two items that are most definitely bug reports. One is a Web 1.0 WebListbox issue that might as well be closed now and the other is a Xojo framework issue with ParseJSON and that might as well be closed now too with API 2.0 out. Everything else on that list would be freaking awesome, but only if the rest of Xojo was more stable and less buggy.
Monday a Feedback Report 61895 titled “Do a Xojo ‘Snow Leopard’ version that focuses solely on bug fixes and performance improvements. For those that don’t know the reference, Apple released a version of Mac OS X named Snow Leopard that did very little in the way of new features but worked on stability, speed, and bug fixes. It’s still considered one of the better OS’s that Apple ever made. I think in large part because they kept their promise of fixing stuff and not adding major new features.
Anyway, back to our Feedback Report. Within hours it had climbed to number 13 on the top 20 list and then was closed by Geoff as “Not Actionable’. This seems intentionally obtuse on his part because I know several long-term developers that have advocated for such a release for a long time. I even wrote about it in June of 2018 https://www.bkeeneybriefs.com/2018/06/xojo-and-the-rapid-release-model/. So this is not a new idea.
Look, I’m a developer, too. Working on bugs is no fun (especially for obscure ones) so I get, from a developers perspective, that new features are way more fun and exciting. But just once I’d love to get a Xojo that didn’t have a bunch of new classes, API, targets, etc. just so that the existing things we have becomes better, more stable, less error prone, and an IDE that is faster and more efficient.
Is this idea perfect? Oh heck no. I realize that bug fix releases might not attract new users. But it does make people like me happier and a happier Xojo developer is a good thing. I think marketing should be able to make hay with the sunshine that results from a better product.
Is that too much to ask?