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If you still use Visual Basic 6 or remember it fondly, you should consider Real Studio. It has the philosophy of "simple things should be simple, complex things should be possible". We continually get VB6 developers that decide to move to Real Studio rather than switch to the current complex Microsoft ecosystem. Real Studio is as accessible as VB6, but is as object-oriented as VB.NET. Plus it creates cross-platform applications. Check it out: http://www.realsoftware.com/

If anyone had any interest in running their VB6 exes on linux or windows, they would be using Real Basic.

then which language and which GUI toolkit do you recommend for applications that must run on both Windows and Mac OS X?

REAL Studio

RealBasic, like Delphi is a great product which is often overlooked. RealBasic supports full OO code, has a nice IDE and form designer, better implementations of most of the VB classes and function, and it compiles programs for Windows, Mac (OS X and Carbon), and Linux.

For some reason Real Software never really markets their product at all, and they seem to be putting less and less effort into it. Although the RB OO system is superior, the RB documentation is not. The level of detail and even up to date information is far below MSDN, and the online community sites are not much better. I think that is a huge blow for people who are trying to migrate to RB, especially VB programmers trying to grasp the OO model.

It's a shame that people put out excellent developer tools and have such poor marketing. Realbasic is much more powerful than VB, and probably would be a great solution for many people. But only if they hear about it...

RealBasic is a decent RAD tool (similar to VB) which can compile across platforms (Linux, Windows, MacOS). It's not free but it definitely makes developing apps easier and removes the need to choose.

when you think of basic - you talk of GOTO statements & line numbers.
but modern Basics just havent used Goto statements or Line numbers in almost 2.5 decades!

except for some syntactical curiosities - the code you write with basic
supports the same structures as C, pascal, or java for decades already.

when's the last time you've seen Basic code? did it have line numbers or goto statements?
how about variable records (structs), function passing, and C-like dimensioning:

| local FN generateRawMoves(board as ^boardRecord, moves(0) as moveRecord)
|
| dim as long pieceMoves, numMoves, querySquare
|
| numMoves = 0
|
| for querySquare = 1 to 64
| pieceMoves = 0
| long if board.square[querySquare] 0
| pieceMoves = FN pieceTree(board, moves(0), querySquare)
| end if
|
| numMoves = numMoves++
| next querySquare
|
| end FN = numMoves

basic as it was 20-30 years ago is not what basic has become.

on the mac, there's currently a very useful (free!) futurebasic5 to C
cross-compiler available here, with an active 20yr+ user community:

FBtoC: http://www.4toc.com/fb/
|
| FBtoC 5.4.4 creates Mac OS X universal applications
| (Mach-O executables) from FutureBasic source.

real basic allows object oriented (cocoa) code, and is cross-platform:

RealBasic:
http://www.realsoftware.com/realbasic/

basic has also been adopted to some new paradigms.
it used to be that basic wasn't compiled, and interpreted languages
were considered too slow -- now basic is compiled, and java abounds.

or -- instead of using csh for scripting -- how about basic??

Apple I BASIC as a Mac OS X Scripting Language
http://www.pagetable.com/?p=35
|
| $ cat reverse.bas
| #!/usr/bin/apple1basic
| 10 DIM A$(100)
| 20 INPUT A$
| 30 FOR I = LEN(A$) TO 1 STEP -1
| 40 PRINT A$(I,I);
| 50 NEXT I
| 60 PRINT
| 70 END
| $ chmod a+x reverse.bas
| $ echo MICHAEL STEIL | ./reverse.bas
| LIETS LEAHCIM

basic aint what it was - so stop this thirty-year old gripe against goto & line numbers... aaargh.

i say why because my app only runs on linux (for now). i don't know anything about multiplatform stuff and wouldn't even try to (I'm a VB developer..)

Apparently you know a LOT about cross-platform development already, because you're evidently developing in a WINDOWS-ONLY language (VB) but SOMEHOW getting your app to run in LINUX.

Perhaps you were developing in THIS, or THIS?

Idiot.

This is not difficult, in fact it's much easier than actually writing software. Here's the license.

Easy to read and not objectionable... eh? We put the bulleted summary at the top so that the key points would be visible in the UI.

Other companies don't do this because they choose not to.

Most people that have used RB speak well of it.

Most people that have used RB speak well of it.

You can find it at realsoftware.

Used to be free as in beer on Linux, but doesn't seem to be any more.

REALbasic is really shaping up to fill the niche left by the demise of Visual Basic 6. I haven't played with this feature extensively yet but it does have an office automation feature to handle Excel, Word, etc. Might be worth a look.

If the owner wants to write in VB6, or you're not prepared to drink the Microsoft Kool-Aid and require .NET and a 15MB download, you might want to consider RealBASIC.

It's almost totally compatible with VB6, and compiles to native code on Windows, Macintosh and Linux, so you'd actually have the option of supporting multiple platforms.

http://www.realsoftware.com/

Sounds like the poster above had a negative experience, but RB2006 has worked great every time I've used it. My understanding is that Real Software switched to building RealBasic in RealBasic so that they had to "eat their own dog food". I find that to be commendable, not arrogant or smug.

I think RealBasic is a great alternative to people who have been working in VB6. Compiled apps are standalone binaries (unless you specifically need a special library, say for using a 3rd party scanner), and so DLL-Hell is avoided on Windows. It has great database support too, using SQLite for local data storage, and connecting to DBs like MySQL, Postgre, SQLServer, OpenBase, and Oracle also. It's object-orientation is also far beyond what VB6 has to offer. Plus it comes with a VB6 importer which can really help if the imported project isn't too big or too much of a mess.

As far as whether RB2006 is "teh sux0r" or not, I think the best way to get a feel for how RB2006 is doing is to read their New Users Group mailing list archive, which gives a good impression of the overall happiness of RB users as well as some insight into the strengths and weaknesses of the language.

Back before it turned into a steaming turd, RealSoftware's RealBasic Professional would have been an ideal solution to the cross-platform authoring problem that VisualBasic presents. (It supports Mac OS, Windows and Linux.) In fact, they even went so far as to provide tools needed to port VB projects to RB.

However, the folks at RealSoftware got greedy and let the quality of their past products go to their heads. All current versions of the software are written and compiled using RB itself... a move that has caused the brand to suffer horribly compared to the 5.x and earlier versions.

It's a Cocoa app, so it's Objective-C but it's not the language. I have the same problem, and I only have a few hundred entires.

I'd thought that this http://www.realsoftware.com/news/pr/2006/cocoa had already been done....so you're right.

IMO if you need to crank out a cross platform app very, very quickly it's a nice way to go. Of course there are the pitfalls of the use of proprietary tools but the folks at RB have made a point of playing well with others.

BTW, I have no connection to RB other than a satisfied user since their beta days.

IMO if you need to crank out a cross platform app very, very quickly it's a nice way to go. Of course there are the pitfalls of the use of proprietary tools but the folks at RB have made a point of playing well with others.

BTW, I have no connection to RB other than a satisfied user since their beta days.

I got my first computer a c64 in 83, no problem finding software or shareware. The lack of an SDK and GUI widgets really kept me from entering programming, doing a BBS with ansi/petascii graphics was a chore. Wrote a BBS, compiled with blitz basic, never did much after that.

Now, I use perl/expect/bash for work, to make things easier for admining boxes. I guess its programming, but I never create much more than simple statistical .csv files from data.

BTW, Have been tempted to start programming after seeing Realbasic. Followed the demo, and made a program in 30 minutes, and it worked on my linux box without problems. Supports OSX too. Havnt seen anyone else mention this yet.

Rather than out-sourcing the porting project, why not re-write it for Linux yourself using a cross-platform tool development like REALbasic?

Then you control the code and you have just one code base to manage, rather than two or three. These guys tried that and were quite successful:
http://www.realsoftware.com/users/commercial/spamx /

Heck, you can still do your development on the Mac and cross-compile to Linux and Windows. Or just get the free version for Linux and develop for Linux on Linux.

--
Matt

hmm.. how about this?

Then again for a more classic VB approach there is always this. though the latter is a commercial package, just pointing it out.. :) (though the linux ver isn't expected until august '05, it is just around the corner)..

In any case, I think java, or mono are probably your best bets for cross platform, and since java's license restricts it a bit, and makes it a total painfull effort to even *get* working on some platforms... mono may be the better choice.. IMHO it's very ironic that an MS developed platform is probably what will bring the ultimate in cross platform portability for gui applications.

I beg to differ. And your projects run on all 3 platforms!

As long as I get the job done. Wow, the customer service girl is cute! I'm switching!

http://www.realsoftware.com/support/customerservic e/

Yep,
it's $100 for the "standard edition" and $400 for the "professional edition". For what I would use this for I doubt I would care $300 worth about the pro features(sql plugin, better debugger, good autoinstaller).

I played with the RealBasic demo back in OS8, but I haven't tried it in recent history.

Yep,
it's $100 for the "standard edition" and $400 for the "professional edition". For what I would use this for I doubt I would care $300 worth about the pro features(sql plugin, better debugger, good autoinstaller).

I played with the RealBasic demo back in OS8, but I haven't tried it in recent history.

REALbasic Professional Edition lets you create software for Windows, Linux and Macintosh from a single code base.

REALbasic 2005 is a modern, object-oriented language and environment, so C++ developers feel right at home. Familiar concepts such as polymorphism, object references and exception handling are supported with a clean, modern syntax.

http://realsoftware.com/products/

Look at what is happening to the VB community. They have no where to turn because MS made their whole code base legacy with VB.NET

Because Microsoft has ended support for Visual Basic 6, REAL Software is offering Visual Basic users a new home-REALbasic. From now through April 15, 2005, Visual Basic users can get REALbasic 5.5 for Windows Standard Edition, completely free of charge.

Another example was IN CONTROL being bought by their main competitor, then the product killed with no migration path, leaving me with all my personal organization data in a dead application.

Or Adobe killing PageMill, without offering anything comparable my wife could use to update her web site.

Or Apple killing the Newton, leaving me with all my personal organizer data in a dead product.

Or Corel killing WordPerfect for the Mac, leaving people with thousands of documents and no easy way to convert them to a supported product.

Incidentally, stranded VB6 developers can get a free REALbasic license rather than being forced to migrate to .NET, and as an added bonus it'll let them make their code run on Mac and Linux too. (I submitted that to Slashdot as a story but it was rejected, I guess availability of RealBasic applications doesn't matter to Linux.)

I'd like to add that RealBasic announced just today that they are offering a free RealBasic license to anyone who holds a VB6 license, up to 3 per physical address.

There's a utility to convert a VB6 project to RealBasic as well as a migration guide.

I've downloaded and installed, but haven't taken the time to review it yet.

you have to write them in C/C++ theres a realbasic plug in sdk avaliable to download here

theres a dated plug in writing example here which'll give you a rough idea of how it all works, RB plug-ins are only platform specific if you use platform specific code, if you use active x for example, it becomes a windows specific plug-in.

the linux version of the IDE isn't out yet and is going to premier with the new version of realbasic (RealBasic 2005) realbasic has been able to conpile for linux from about version 3/4. some screenshots from Realbasic 2005: IDE, IDE 2, compiled app

the linux version of the IDE isn't out yet and is going to premier with the new version of realbasic (RealBasic 2005) realbasic has been able to conpile for linux from about version 3/4. some screenshots from Realbasic 2005: IDE, IDE 2, compiled app

the linux version of the IDE isn't out yet and is going to premier with the new version of realbasic (RealBasic 2005) realbasic has been able to conpile for linux from about version 3/4. some screenshots from Realbasic 2005: IDE, IDE 2, compiled app

The about to be released version of RealBasic does allow the IDE to run on Linux and is written in RealBasic.

This implies that its Linux support will be more robust than the current version's.

Also, if you have a VB 6 license, you can get a free RealBasic Standard for Windows license through April 15th.

One thing to look out for if your writing a RealBasic application for Linux is DB support. There are many database plugins for RB but I've had issues getting some of them to work properly on Linux (though it's been awhile since I've tried so things may have improved).

Anyway, if you're a licensed VB6 user, you probably have a Windows machine, so why not get the free RB license and give it a whirl. It is a "better basic" than VB6, mostly because it's a real OOP environment and is actively being worked on by a company that lives or dies on it being a good product.

HTH

The about to be released version of RealBasic does allow the IDE to run on Linux and is written in RealBasic.

This implies that its Linux support will be more robust than the current version's.

Also, if you have a VB 6 license, you can get a free RealBasic Standard for Windows license through April 15th.

One thing to look out for if your writing a RealBasic application for Linux is DB support. There are many database plugins for RB but I've had issues getting some of them to work properly on Linux (though it's been awhile since I've tried so things may have improved).

Anyway, if you're a licensed VB6 user, you probably have a Windows machine, so why not get the free RB license and give it a whirl. It is a "better basic" than VB6, mostly because it's a real OOP environment and is actively being worked on by a company that lives or dies on it being a good product.

HTH

I'm not sure there's a version of RealBASIC that actually runs on Linux. I think it's more like a compiler target. Maybe with their next version (should be out soon) there'll be something that actually allows Linux dev on Linux.

More info here, I think...

http://www.realsoftware.com/realbasic/guides/porti ngvisualbasic/

http://www.realsoftware.com/realbasic/

A buddy of mine uses this because it is cross-platform and has an IDE. It's not free, but it's easy, kind of like my last girlfriend. Shouldn't have married her, but that is another story.

Good thing there is REALbasic.

It is almost completely syntax compatible with VB and it has the benefit of compiling for Windows, Mac and Linux. And it even comes with a VB Project Converter to help you along.

There is a strong community of developers and some excellent plugins. Including a database plugin for Valentina which is much more powerful than the built-in database (and than Access).

You can develop for Mac, Windows and Linux using REALbasic is very. They have a free Visual Basic project converter tool. Porting from Visual Basic is quite straightforward

You can develop for Mac, Windows and Linux using REALbasic is very. They have a free Visual Basic project converter tool. Porting from Visual Basic is quite straightforward

It compiles to Linux, Mac, and Windows with no additional configuration. It doesn't need .dlls. You can write C plugins for it. It's not produced by the evil empire

Oh yeah, and it can import VB projects...

What about switching to Real Basic? I have not used it myself, but some say it's pretty good compared to VB6. I don't know about full compatibility with VB either. But, it may be something to consider at least for new projects.

If you use the space bar, you would always have to auto-complete. You couldn't decide to type a space and continue.

The philosophy of REALbasic is to let you know that help is available rather than shoving it in your face (the way VB does) and telling you to ignore it if it's unwanted.

REALbasic isn't exactly like VB but it's close enough that people are porting VB projects to REALbasic. Check out these out:

http://www.realsoftware.com/company/pressreleases/ pr_computest.html

http://www.realsoftware.com/realbasic/case_studies /spamx/

If you use the space bar, you would always have to auto-complete. You couldn't decide to type a space and continue.

The philosophy of REALbasic is to let you know that help is available rather than shoving it in your face (the way VB does) and telling you to ignore it if it's unwanted.

REALbasic isn't exactly like VB but it's close enough that people are porting VB projects to REALbasic. Check out these out:

http://www.realsoftware.com/company/pressreleases/ pr_computest.html

http://www.realsoftware.com/realbasic/case_studies /spamx/

Take a look at realbasic.

It is very very convenient to use, and is great for beginner students. Beginning students want to be able to drag a button into the main window, double-click on it, and get access to the method that handles the buttons events.

It's a very well-designed sytem for beginners.

particularly the GUI-drawing system

From my experience, this is the most commonly sited perk of VB. It's something that you've been able to do for darn near any language for a long time- GUI designers really aren't new, and VB doesn't even have the best one available.

The frequency that I see people cite the GUI designer as the major benefit to VB makes me think that most folks- especially the types of people on /.- seem to be stuck in the past, coding all of their GUIs manually. I know that the development setup is generally some years behind for most Linux developers compared to your average coder on Windows or Mac OS X, and that there are fewer good and polished tools on Linux. But still- there are free GUI designers for GTK+, FLTK, Qt and Motif. And for just about any other toolkit and language. Do people not use these?

That said, tools like VB and RealBasic (with which I've more experience than VB) are RADs for more than just a GUI designer. Using Glade for a C/GTK+ app won't make you as productive as a seasoned VB coder for simple app development, but it will shave off some time spent coding the GUI programatically.

But there are options, and some darn good ones on, for Linux:

Prima: a new GUI toolkit for perl- including a really nice RAD GUI builder- for Linux, OS/2 and Windows.

Squeak Smalltalk: Runs on just about every platform. Uses a seperate GUI toolkit, but affords a huge amount of power and ease of development.

RealBasic: A cross-platform VB clone for Mac OS Classic/X, Windows and Linux. *Really* nice. Costs money, but it's worth it.

RunTime Revolution: Has a HyperTalk-like language and runs almost anywhere. ...and others. But those are some that embody the feeling of a RAD IDE like VB. That is, they do more than just add a GUI designer.

Have you tried Realbasic? It seems to be powerful enough for people to use for "real" programming (and it's crossplatform, well, at least it runs on Macs and PCs.) You can also try introducing her to a stack-oriented scripting language (similar to Hypercard.) There's one called Runtime Revolution and it runs on Macs, PCs, and Linux (according to their website.)

I'd personally find stack-oriented scripting languages easier to pick up (from a newbie's perspective) because the process of dealing with event-driven loops is automatically built into the environment - you just have to tell the stack how to interpret button presses, etc. Also, it's easy to keep things segmented - individual scripts live on their own cards, and you can link the cards together in any particular order you want.

Short and simple answer? Because higher level languages generally abstract the programmer from making low-level routines that can seriously affect how much time the programmer puts into the look and feel of an app. For me as a user, I often get annoyed at programs that do their functionality well, but have horrible UI and horrible design.

For me as a programmer, I use REALbasic (not mentioned in the article). The IDE isn't on Linux, yet, but the remote debugging works well for me. It's compiled down to native machine code, allows for expandability through C/C++ plugins, and helps me effortlessly lay out my UI. It looks like a pretty solid product