There are bugs and then there are bugs. Not all are created equal and certainly not all are worthy of a dot release. But when a serious bug comes to light you have to take it seriously.
Feedback 55596 is a perfect example of this. If you use Listbox.CellTextPaint or Listbox.CellBackgroundPaint your app will leak memory. Leaking memory is bad to begin with but since the Listbox calls these events frequently. Losing 64 bytes per call adds up quickly.
I was going to do a release today for a client using 2019 R1. This was the first release where Windows drawing was as fast as older versions of Xojo. Prior releases of this product had to be built with 2017 R2. So now what do I do? I’m damned if I do a build and I’m damned if I go back to 2017 since we have to retest everything.
Xojo Inc. doesn’t seem interested in doing a dot release. On the forum Greg was quoted as saying, “…doing a point release is not an insignificant task and takes resources away from making progress on other things, never mind the additional stress that comes with it.” Who cares if it’s work on their part? Seriously, if I can’t use the current public release then why am I here? It’s bad enough I’ve been chasing Xojo versions for nearly two years with Windows drawing.
This is part of a much bigger issue that many at the Xojo Developers Conference discussed a few weeks ago. Xojo has always been a lean organization and many times I’ve felt that it’s been quite anemic. But an important bug and a public release to fix it shouldn’t be a major stress inducer to the developers. To me this says there are too few developers and too much work on their plate.
For what it’s worth, the bug is marked as fixed as of May 14th. It’s still too early to tell if we’ll get a dot release for such an important bug fix. Maybe R2 is just around the corner but I don’t have time for a 30 to 60 day beta period. I need this fix now.