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REALbasic To Add Linux support
__past__ writes "REAL software just
announced
that the next version of their REALbasic
IDE will add support for building native Linux applications, in addition to the
Windows, Mac OS classic and OS X targets. Given that it will include a converter
for existing Visual Basic projects, this could be a usefull tool for migrating
existing apps written in everybody's favourite language to free platforms,
something that other projects like
Gambas or
KBasic don't address."
Why is it 'Everyone's favorate language' once it's on Linux, but a steaming pile of shit that's infested the computing platform when it's on Windows?
This is a good thing for Linux folks, and perhaps somewhat for Mac folks.
RealBASIC has been a popular RAD tool on the Mac for a while. I doubt many folks using Linux are going to want to run out and switch to BASIC, but existing RealBASIC programs should now be easy to port to Linux.
May we never see th
That can be taken two ways. It either means everyone's favorite language in that it's a very popular language to write programs for, or it's prefered over other languages as it's "the best" or people "like it better."
I sure hope it's the first because I do not like VB at all...
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Even though I despise VB (I program ASP/VB for work and PHP for my own stuff, wishing I knew another app-dev language replace VB), it's what I know best and what pays the bills, so ANYTHING that will allow me to use those skills on *nix is a welcome one!!
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
Is this only going to be ia32 GNU/linux only, or also sh4, ppc, ppc64, ia64, arm, s390, s390x, m68k, sparc, alpha, etc. GNU/LINUX?
I mean, really. Kylix doesn't run under OSX yet? Pffttt.
... oh, say, 2 years ago.
...
With this move to supporting Linux, RealBasic is now what Delphi should have been
I for one look forward to the *thousands* of simple, easy to use, well-written RealBasic apps that can now be relatively easily ported to Linux.
I think that having a RAD tool like RealBasic around is going to be very positive for Linux - even in the light of other RAD tools, such as Kylix, the Gnome stuff (whatsitcalled?), &etc. RealBasic has been responsible for a lot of good, simple, easy apps under MacOS and Windows, from checkbook balancing programs to automatic downloaders, to email programs, etc.
Having all of these new apps for Linux may well give a lot of companies the incentive to re-consider Linux on the desktop - well, in fact, having the ability to port RealBasic apps from Windows or OSX -> Linux will do a *lot* for Linux on the desktop, in my opinion.
In my days as a consultant focusing exclusively on implementing Linux solutions for customers, there were plenty of examples of when a small to medium sized business would've run Linux if only there were (perceived to be) an easier "VB" style app development environment for Linux. This was supposed to happen with Kylix, but somehow that fell sort of flat (didn't it?).
I hope RealBasic kicks some serious ass in this arena, and we start to see really interesting new apps being developed for Linux which don't just do the same old thing
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
If candy rots the teeth, BASIC rots the brain. And R---B---c has BASIC as its roots...
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
Kylix has been available for years now, yet I have never seen a Windows application migrated to Linux. (Just checked freshmeat, it knows of 30 Delphi programs that run on Linux. Some of those might use GNU Pascal or Free Pascal instead of Kylix).
Enter REALbasic. It has more or less the same design goals as Delphi, but it doesn't actually run on Linux, you just can create Linux applications from the Windows and Mac version (quote:REALbasic 5.5 will add the ability to create Linux applications from Windows or Macintosh computers.). It will thus be pretty useless for Linux programmers. Most users on other platforms probably won't bother to generate Linux binaries, let alone test them. For people switching from Mac/Windows to Linux it isn't very useful either, because they would need to keep their old platform around to make any changes.
Visual Basic is often described in VB books as the "system glue". This means that you usually don't write huge amounts of code in it, you use it to put components together. A database app would usually be made of standard controls, ADO objects, data bound controls, perhaps some third party spread/grid control and often Crystal Reports or something similar.
Having a VB compiler won't help much, unless they also plan to make Linux versions of ADO libraries and other useful things that are used often. And then there are the tons of WinAPI calls many VB programs are full of, because VB's capabilities even in version 6 aren't very impressive.
I'm currently considering how to move from VB to Linux, and my current best idea is to isolate the evil parts, like Crystal Reports by moving them to a separate program. This way I could use just one Windows computer to print reports, and rewrite most things in Linux more easily.
so where's the source code so I can compile this on NetBSD/sparc? and NetBSD/sgimips? Or maybe only NetBSD/i386? Not all the world is Linux/i386, and the latter is becoming more and more of a closed, commercial system.
- Hubert
Please re-read my response, namely the issue with the .NET implementation in general and the requirements in specific (no install [not necessarily no VM, just a VM that itself does not require an install, like PHP], memory management). There was and is bitterness about 40megs required to run .NET, but I'd think that would and should piss everyone off! Besides, try installing Visual Studio.NET, 2 hours and many many gigs later you're still watching a progress bar (and this was on a dual PIII 733 w/ 512 RAMBUS under the hood). I do indeed take issue with that, besides... <sarcasm>in the grand /. tradition, you need to flame anyone who touts M$ technology ;)</sarcasm>
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
Actually no, it doesn't. It's INI needs to be within the current system path (which includes the current directory "."), but even that is optional (it will run with it's default settings if it's not present). So all you need to do is to (optionally) copy "PHP.ini" into "\Windows\System" or even into "\Apache\bin" and you're 100% A-OK.
"1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
In my opinion, there isn't really a good cross platoform GUI library out there. (Ok, lets just say- using my arbitrary criteria).
I'd consider using Java, as I like the language, and Swing is Ok-- but there are no visual UI tools for swing (again, none that I didn't rule out for one reason or another.)
Interface builder combined with Cocoa is so freaking amazing that once you've used it you become a bit jaded... but when you want to write an app that you know the market is going to be heavily linux and windows weighted, you need to come up with something.
I had been looking at Runtime Revolutions, but they recently changed their licensing structure, and they use the card metaphor, so they're not as appealing -- but they do support one click compilation for windows, linux, mac and a half dozen other unixes.
Realbasic seems a reasonable comrpomise-- I can write my hard core code in Objective-C (easy to port anywhere there's GCC) and do the UI in Basic using RB...
Looks like I'll have to remember how to program in Basic... its been years.
But at least I won't have to use a compromise cross platform GUI toolkit that compromises the Look and Feel. For instance, Qt apps look terrible on the Mac. Real Basic apps look about right on Linux and Windows (And fine on the Mac).
Oh, and after learning Objective-C, I'd rather write in BASIC than C++!
Yes, Objective-C is that good, at least paired with good frameworks (and gnustep is a good framework.)
Yeah, and you guys panned the ipod too: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23
True, in the initial release, RB will only compile to Linux, not run on it.
This was the case for Windows development too, for quite a while. But in 5.1, RB shipped the IDE for Windows too. This might be taken to imply that the IDE code is pretty portable already.
Amazingly enough, it IS possible to write a decent application in RB, the only problem is that you get all these kids who are just learning how to program, don't understand exceptions, error checking, or GUI design, and think they can be hax0rs releasing simple apps that just stink of poor design.
Also, earlier versions (I'm not sure about the current release, the last version I played with was a pre-release of 2.0) had problems with very large projects. You would start getting random StackOverflowExceptions and NilObjectExceptions even when none should exist, but from what I hear, that's mostly fixed.
One of RB's early advantages over other mac 'visual basics' was the fact that you could create subclasses of existing classes, and the language had full inheritance and all that jazz that a true object oriented language should have. It also sported XCMDs (hypercard plugins written in C or pascal or some more powerful language), so you could easily extend its capabilities. Later versions were able to import plugins in the form of compiled C++ code, which led to the lack of portability of some applications. Luckily there are compiler directives, so you could have several versions of a plugin in your project (win32, macOs, macOSX) and depending on what platform you're building for, it'll use different code.
I wonder how much easier it will be to create plugins for linux. how about PERL plugins? SH? hmmmm....
...spike
Ewwwwww, coconut...
BTW, info (and source code!) for the original Dartmouth Basic is available at here.
RealBasic may come out with a Linux development environment later. For a while, you had to develop on mac but could compile for windows. If many rb developers take advantage of rb linux then maybe they'll port the IDE as well.
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Come on, whatever you can think of RealBasic and all that kind of fast developpement tools, this guy is right when is says it is usually for beginners and that it frequently gives us awfull program!
:p).
I have seen too much programs for Mac that could have be done in 50 lines of C with an executable of just a few Kb, and instead are at least 1Mb (minimum size for RealBasic program, as far I have seen).
Look at this example: FreeSpaceFile X
That's 1.2 Mb for something that could have been done in one line of shell!!!!!!!!! nahhh...
(Though i am sure it certainly has a lot of good way to be used, the fact it is used by beginners to start programming is a really really awfull and not wanted, at least by me
Have you seen some of the crap that the script kiddies want to charge for after they learn Visual Basic? Its discusting...