[NUG] *Re: API 2.0

[Jon Ogden]

> On Mar 14, 2019, at 10:09 AM, Norman Palardy <npalardy at great-white-software.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Mar 14, 2019, at 7:58 AM, Jon Ogden via Nug <nug at xojousers.com> wrote:
>> 
>> My point exactly.  I had filed a bug report and it’s probably still open or closed as unreproducible.  The big gripe of most users is that instead of fixing things, Xojo just keeps going ahead and adding more stuff or changing stuff.  Take Serial Ports there’s a status bug with them as reported here: <feedback://showreport?report_id=14952>  In face the mailer doesn’t format Feedback links right it is case 14952.  This has been verified since 2015.  Verified.  Means that Xojo reproduced the bug.
> 
> No
> It means "this behaves as described"
> Verified isn't "Verified this is a bug"
> Those statuses aren't clear in that regard and this is a constant source of pain and conflict internally and externally
> It would be nice to have that status say "Verified this behaves as stated" or something much more complete and then extra statuses for "verified as a bug" or something
> 

Norman, come one.  That’s a terrible excuse and it doesn’t make logical sense in probably 99% of the cases.  If a user documents something that is clearly different from what the documentation says and that clearly gives different results like it does in this case, then it’s clearly a bug.  Once Xojo verifies that something behaves improperly, then what else would you call it?  Swiss cheese?  Makes as much sense.  Maybe it’s too soon after being gone from Xojo and the Xojo Reality Distortion Field (XRDF) around you has not faded away enough yet.

Let’s see, “We have verified that this behavior as documented by the customer does indeed match what the customer claims.  It is not working as we describe in in the documentation nor is it working consistently.  But it’s not a bug.  We are calling it an undocumented feature.  Yeah, that’s it.  We just verified that the bad behavior you saw does occur.  But we are too busy building big new features to worry about what problems customer may have to work around."

>> But it’s 4 years later and it’s not done.  And actually the first report of this was in 2010!!!
> 
> I honestly dont know why they ever did what they did with the baud rates turning them into numeric constants that arent just the baud rates themselves
> That would have made more sense
> 
>> So why not FIX stuff first then move on instead of compounding error on top of error.
> 
> Fixes dont sell new versions.

No.  They retain customers and make customers thrilled who then continue to use the product, continue to renew and tell their friends about it.  A buggy software results in a lot of one time purchasers who then trash the product online and don’t evangelize and recruit others.

> In most fields getting people's attention is driven by big new features - and a long list of bug fixes doesn't get a lot of attention.
> Its hard to get any of the news sites to mention a release that is a long list of bug fixes.


And that’s part of the problem.  It’s being driven by the “news” sites and not by actually building a product that is truly robust.  There’s been a LOT of long time customers who have left Xojo because of the unfixed issues.  These people haven’t renewed and they haven’t brought in others.  In fact, they have probably trashed the product on forums and told others to stay away.  But that doesn’t make it to news sites either.  The XRDF functions great because the news sites have a big story about how Xojo is embracing iOS.  Never mind the framework was a shambles and left the user to define many, many controls through declares.  Now there’s a news story about Android or this or that.  Half-assed job gets done and the bugs never get fixed or the framework improved because now we are on to the next thing just to drive the news cycle.  XRDF generators functioning at full capacity.

> 
> Basically bug fixes releases don't affect the revenue model and so they aren't common
> 

Actually they do, way more than you think or realize.  Part of your revenue model is customer retention.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Xojo and I’m all in on it.  But I’m disgusted by the fact that so many choose to look the other way and not address problems that should be fixed.  Instead new layers are just piled on which creates more bugs, etc.