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Gambas 1.0 Release Candidate Available

Posted by Hemos on from the getting-ready-for-the-big-time dept.

raindog2 writes "After two and a half years of development, Gambas has become the first Visual Basic-style environment for Linux to enter release candidate status. Anyone who has been frustrated by a lack of production-quality free RAD environments should give it a try."

8 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. I sense... by palad1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    A great disturbance in the Force.
    It was like a million voices crying out in unison, then suddenly silenced.

    Thank god the project page is already slashdotted.

  2. Hmmmm by black6host · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Kylix doesn't count? Although the *free* version did have some limitations it was quite possible to develop software in a RAD based environment using Kylix.

    Granted, neither version (free or pay) took off quite the way some would have liked but all the same, let's give credit where credit is due.

  3. Fast by Daengbo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Wow this project has matured fast. I stumbled on it ??a year and a half ago?? when it was still in its infancy. Every once in a while I visit it, expecting it to be dead like so many other projects that I try to follow, but I am always suprised by new material on the front pages.

    Congrats to the Gambas developers for being such work horses! I am impressed.

    --
    Put identity in the browser.
  4. What about the Visual Editor project on Eclipse? by Ikeya · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe the Visual Editor isn't in release status? (I think it is, but I'm not sure.) But this definately isn't the only nor the first visual editor project. Check it out if you're interested in a RAD platform with graphical elements very similar to Visual Basic, etc. It uses Java and not BASIC, but I don't see that as a bad thing.
    Oh yeah... it's also open source.

    The Eclipse Visual Editor Project

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    ---- Move SIG...For great justice!
  5. Interesting by gustgr · · Score: 5, Funny

    In portuguese the word gambá means skunk :-) Well, it is VB-like after all.

  6. VB by icebattle · · Score: 5, Insightful
    The thing I always liked about VB was that it enabled my boss to get his 12-year-old to write an app that almost did something useful. Then he installed it and required everyone to use it. When it failed because of poor file locking, arbitrary array limit choices (try 53) and other CS101 gambits, it became my problem (with no windows background) to fix.

    Do we really need a VB clone in linuxland?

    1. Re:VB by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes.

      You can write good code in VB, only elitist morons hear the word "BASIC" and think it's beneath them.

      We have tons and tons of VB code that we have no time, or really need, to port.

      High level languages are the future. People who think if it isn't written in C or ASM will be left in the past.

      The easier it is to write, the easier it is to maintain, and the easier it is to use good code form and techniques. It doesn't mean any idiot can fire it up and write good code, writing good code is a skill. Just like anyone can learn to speak english, but it doesn't make them a good poet or author.

      The problem is your boss's 12 year old kid, not the language. Be thankful he didn't write his dogshit code in FORTRAN, COBOL or C, using the most obscure syntax he could because it made him feel smarter. I've had to maintain/port plenty of that crap and it's no fun at all.

      --
      I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  7. Re:Page won't load by raindog2 · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm surprised it got slashdotted so fast. Anyway, it compiles to its own pseudo-code not unlike the first 3 or 4 revisions of VB.... nothing saying someone couldn't write a compiler from that pseudo-code to CLR/Mono or Parrot or the JVM, but no one's really started talking about that seriously yet.

    The language is about as strict as VB is when you use Option Explicit, and wasn't built as a clone of VB, so while we have a Perl script to convert form layouts over (which I wrote, and which I will integrate with the IDE when I finish my PCRE component for Gambas soon) converting code is still a manual process, and there are a lot of differences though it's still BASIC. I will continue to work on conversion tools, though.

    Finally, there is no FreeTDS (Sybase/MSSQL) database driver yet, but I expect that to follow eventually.... I would be writing one myself except I keep moving people off of MSSQL and Sybase and onto MySQL.

    I've only contributed a little code to Gambas, I just maintain Mandrake packages and the wiki from which the documentation is generated.