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Category: Learning

Take A Core Dump: What to do when your app crashes on Linux

With many things in life, more choices means more freedom of expression. We can pick and choose what we like personally as a way to express ourselves. Such is the world on Linux. The myriad of different Linux distros along with all the different Desktop managers and Window managers available are daunting. While more choices is nice (in general anyway), it can also cause more confusion. As a cross-platform developer, you’re probably aware that every operating system has their own way of dealing with crashes and crash reports.  On Linux this is no different, but it is more confusing because not every Linux distro plays by the same configuration. This blog will answer some fundamental questions you may have about what happens when your application crashes on Linux.

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Guest Post: A Few Little Xojo Code Performance Tips by Eric Gibbon

Eric Gibbon has been using Xojo to develop bespoke cross-platform applications for Mac and PC and for the web for 15 years. He lives in Stamford, England, and is an active member of the Xojo UK User Group.

There’s an old programmer’€™s saying: If it works, leave it alone.€ But sometimes we have to go back to code that works to make it go faster, because it’€™s too slow.

Over time I have picked up some tips on how to get better performance from Xojo code. I have used these tips to improve old code running on all platforms and have seen big improvements. They are quick and easy to do.

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Time for a Reminder to Backup Your Data

If you work with computers, having backups of your data is essential. This particularly came to light recently with people testing out Apple Music and discovering that it could make a mess of your iTunes library. In fact, this happened to me!

But “luck favors the prepared” and I had backups, so this Apple Music glitch only proved to be an annoyance and not a catastrophe.

In my case, I just restored my iTunes library from my Time Machine backup. But I know far too many people that don’t even have any type of backup system in place. I’m here to help.

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Gartner: Mobile apps can’t be created fast enough. What’s the solution?

Speaking at one of their conferences, Gartner principal research analyst Adrian Leow said last week that enterprises are increasingly finding it difficult to build all the mobile apps they need. The demand for mobile apps is increasing far faster than the supply of mobile developers can create them and it’s only going to get worse. This is clearly a problem.

There are three possible solutions to this problem:

  1. Find a way to decrease the demand of mobile apps. (Good luck with that one.)
  2. Increase the number of mobile developers.
  3. Decrease the time it takes to build mobile apps.

Solutions 2 and 3 are not mutually exclusive. You could potentially do both. Adrian Leow even points to the solution when he suggests that developers use rapid mobile app development tools. These tools can provide solution 3, but they don’t create necessarily create more developers.

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Programming Resources For Students

Can I learn to code in Xojo for free? Yes, Xojo is free for development and testing!

Do you have a free book so I can learn to code? Yes, Intro to Programming with Xojo is free!

Can I ask my beginner questions? Yes, the Xojo forum is a gateway to the friendly and helpful Xojo community.

The Xojo language is Object-Oriented. Object-Oriented programming is an excellent way to learn the fundamentals of computer programming. Xojo is also cross-platform, which means you can build apps for all kinds of platforms using a single code base. Xojo is a Rapid Application Development tool, which means it’s developed to make building apps simple and quick.

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Casting about in both 32 and 64 bit worlds

Consider the following code:

dim i64 as Int64 = 1234567
dim i32 as int32 = 7654321

i32 = Int32(i64) // cast
i64 = Int64(i32) // cast

i32 = Ctype(i64, Int32) // convert
i64 = Ctype(i32, Int64) // convert

It all seems reasonable enough. Not useful, but seems reasonable. Only one problem. It won’t compile. Why not? The two casts to int32 and int64 will fail. Now why is that?

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