Xojo and the Xojo community are full of resources for beginners, pros and everyone in between.
Comments closedTag: Intro to Xojo Programming Textbook
Educators can download Xojo to a classroom of computers and activate the Xojo Educational license on a build machine. Whether your classroom is Windows, Mac or Linux, the Xojo IDE is cross-platform and free to download. Though you may only be teaching desktop development, your students can stretch their skills and use Xojo’s free IDE to develop web, mobile or Raspberry Pi apps.
Comments closedIt’s always a good time to learn something new! And maybe you have some free time on your hands now? We know our screen time is up this year, so let’s put that extra screen time to good use and learn a new skill – programming. If you are going to add programming to your skillset, it’s logical to begin with a language that makes it simple to learn the basics of programming. Let me show you a learning path you can follow over 14 days that is aimed at giving you a confident and capable to start to programming.
Comments closedWith so many programming languages and development environments around … why you should try Xojo? I could tell you more than 400,000 reasons to just jump-in right away; reasons I’ve heard for over 10 years now from Xojo users around the world that are building all kind of apps, products and solutions in all kinds of fields. Nevertheless, if I really think about, all of these reasons can be condensed into the following 10 main points. Continue reading and I’m pretty sure you will want to give Xojo a try too!
Comments closedLike his father, my teenage son loves video games. The single player games where you take a character through some kind of adventure are the ones I like most. These usually have a fair number of AI-controlled enemies that must be defeated. My son, on the other hand, prefers to play against other human beings. When I asked him why, he said, “The AIs are so predictable.” To prove this to me, he took over when I was having trouble defeating a particularly difficult enemy and quickly dispatched him, narrating his strategy as he went and barely being scratched in the process. My son is an elite player compared to me partially because he puts a lot more time into it than I do but also because he loves video games far more than I do.
Just as people have varying levels of skill and interest in video games, the same is true of app development. There are those that are happy to devote enormous amounts of time to learning everything they possibly can. They don’t care how long it takes. They want to have control over everything and are willing to do whatever is necessary to make that happen. I’m so glad those people exist because there’s a lot of great software that might not otherwise have been created without them. I’m not one of those people. I really want to focus mostly on what makes my application unique, abstracted from the nitty-gritty of app development.
That’s why I have always been attracted to tools like Xojo. I am a citizen developer. Of all the job titles I have had over the years, all of them in tech, none have ever included words like programmer or engineer. I do some software development but it’s just a part of my job. It’s something I do to help me in my work or to help my co-workers.
Comments closedXojo offers the Introduction to Programming with Xojo textbook along with other resources like webinars, the Xojo Forum and the Dev Center. But sometimes you need a broader view, after all, coding isn’t all about the language. A good developer knows the importance of context, broad concepts and history.
These are some of my favorite technology, software and programming books:
Comments closedThe ability to code is an increasingly valuable skill. At Xojo we believe that anybody can learn to make their own apps. And Xojo is a great language for students looking to add programming to their skillset and for citizen developers.
Learn to code using Xojo and you can build apps for Mac, Windows and Linux, web apps, iOS apps and Raspberry Pi apps (and Android- it’s coming!). With the exception of iOS which requires a Mac, you can build for any platform we support from any platform we support. Want to build Windows apps for your friends from your Mac? That’s what Xojo is great at! Want to make your work day easier with a database app to track your inventory? Xojo’s great at that too!
Comments closedJust in time for Xojo 2017 Release 1 and its Remote Debugger for the Raspberry Pi, we released a new book “Programming the Raspberry Pi with Xojo”. The book contains 19 chapters that introduce you to the Raspberry Pi, take you through setting it up and covers learning about Xojo programming for the Pi. Develop and build console and desktop apps for the Pi using Xojo 2019r1 or later for free (download)!
The book includes 8 step-by-step projects for creating a variety of Xojo apps for the Raspberry Pi, including: a text adventure, a music player, a game, Internet access, a web app, plus hardware projects.
Comments closedMy kids both recently finished their summer band camps. My son plays the trombone and my daughter plays the saxophone and trumpet. As one of the instructors at band camp said, even if you don’t take up a career in music, learning and playing music exercises important parts of your brain that are useful for learning other things. In fact, some have wondered if learning music helps with math skills.
I think the same thing can be said about coding. In fact, there is research that found students with computer programming skills scored higher on cognitive ability tests than students without any programming skills. Coding teaches you skills that are valuable even if you don’t plan on being a professional software developer. Being able to code means utilizing incredible attention to detail and thinking about problems abstractly, useful skills for anyone – student or professional.
Remember, Summertime isn’t just an opportunity for the kids to learn new things. You’ve still got a month of Summer left, plenty of time to expand your own skill set. While the kids are at band camp or swim camp send yourself to programming camp from the comfort of your air-conditioned home.
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