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MarioModder91

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Dec 11, 2013
2
0
Anyone on here use the Xojo IDE? It's basic concept of having one unified language for Desktop, Web, and Mobile is great! (iOS support is coming soon).
 
Anyone on here use the Xojo IDE? It's basic concept of having one unified language for Desktop, Web, and Mobile is great! (iOS support is coming soon).

Is it a language or an IDE? I guess it really doesn't matter since I already know Python and Java if I want to write code that runs on Mac or PC, and having the same code run on those 3 platforms (computer, mobile, and web) doesn't make sense.
 
It used to be called "Real Basic" and was intended to be a cross platform development environment using a language simular to Visual Basic, and as an ex VB developer I bought a licence for RB back in 2011, but found it to be very buggy and inconsistent.

The RB IDE and language started to get a bad reputation for it's buggy performance, even with it's long time loyal customers, so about a year ago the Real Software company designed and created a new IDE and re branded the product as Xojo, but underneath it's still very much the old buggy RB language, although their engineers do try hard to continue to improve the product.
So My advise would be think carefully about the other options like C++ and Java if you want cross platform development.

Also look at the price of the Xojo licences as they are not cheap, the only thing that's free is the IDE, to compile and build you need to purchase a licence, and also renew it every year.

There is talk of Xojo adding the capability for iOS development, which is something worth keeping an eye on, but I will not be holding my breath for a bug free version of that Xojo framework, so I'll be staying with Objective-C for that job.

Hope this helps.

Regards mark
 
It used to be called "Real Basic" and was intended to be a cross platform development environment using a language simular to Visual Basic, and as an ex VB developer I bought a licence for RB back in 2011, but found it to be very buggy and inconsistent.

...
To take nothing from Mark FX, there is another point of view. It is very true that Xojo is rebranded REAL Studio formerly REALbasic nee CrossBasic. Consistent with its origins, the IDE can be used to develop GUI-based BASIC applications for the Mac, Windows, or Linux. It can be used to develop Java classes. It can also be used to port Visual BASIC applications to the Mac, Linux, and Java VM. For a while, REALbasic Pro was included with Microsoft Office for the Mac.

From where I sit, the biggest challenge facing Xojo is not bugs, but Xcode and the fact that Xcode is free. Xojo is now available as a free download, but it is my understanding that serious work still requires payment of the Xojo Pro license fee.

A fee-based IDE would be one thing if Xojo were competing only with Microsoft Visual BASIC. Visual BASIC is most noted for developing crappy Windows shareware and unbelievably dangerous Windows malware. OTOH, REALbasic has been used to develop really nice Mac utilities and applications. My favorite commercial terminal emulator, MacWise, is developed using the IDE.

Given this history, Xojo would more than hold it own. Unfortunately, it must convince developers to use it rather than Xcode. That is a tough row to hoe.
 
I can't say I've ever found an IDE that I liked more than Xcode. The only issue I have with developing for OS X is that I don't like Obj-C very much. It used to be my favorite language, and to be honest, it's probably my second favorite language still, but I find that code in it is always excessively long winded. It takes a lot of really long, really repetitive code to write things that are much shorter and easier to read in Python.

Xcode >> Eclipse - not even the slightest competition.
 
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