Slashdot Mirror
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."
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?!
Frankly, I guess the language is still rather shitty. Problem is, it is there, and lots of apps use it, especially custom in-house stuff. Somebody in Munich will probably perform a Schuhplattler out of joy when he hears about that.
Programming can be fun again. Film at 11.
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. --
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.
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
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...