Free IDE Gambas Reaches 1.0

A few months ago, the GPL IDE Gambas reached 1.0 release candidate phase, and now reader drfreak writes "Gambas has now hit 1.0 and looks promising as GNU/Linux's answer to Visual Basic. Now, if it ran in Windows too, it would truly crush VB for database applications. Check it out at gambas.sourceforge.net." A 1.0.1 release came out on January 3rd to fix a few bugs.

Comments

So now it's ok to like VB?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so when you have all the features you laughed and belittled in Visual Basic on linux, there ok all of a sudden?

Re:So now it's ok to like VB?

[onion2k]

VB was only ever meant to be a rapid prototyping tool. You knock up a quick'n'dirty VB version as a proof of concept, then you write the proper version in a more robust language. Unfortunately the management/lazy coders almost always step in with "but we have a working version there.. lets release that".

If people used VB in the way it was meant to be used noone would have any complaints about it. (well, fewer complaints at least..)

Re:So now it's ok to like VB?

[onion2k]

You missed the point in my post. Coders write quick'n'dirty VB apps with the intention of redoing them in (for example) C++ later. The management then come in and want to release the quick'n'dirty version. I'm not suggesting you can't write robust VB code, I'm saying lots of people don't.

Besides which, Microsoft realised people use VB as a proper language instead of a RAD tool now, and they smartened it up a lot a few versions ago. Go back to the mid 90s and VB was NOT a stable dev platform.

Re:So now it's ok to like VB?

[juhaz]

No, it's not ok.

I wonder how tightly this is tied to the Basic implementation, and if it would be possible to switch the underlying language to something decent - say, python - without basically rewriting the whole mess?

Re:So now it's ok to like VB?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alright, slow down, here comes some hard to grok stuff:

Everything cool? Ok, let's go on...

Do you think that it's possible that the Linux community consists of DIFFERENT personalities with DIFFERENT opinions? Just maybe? And that the people who hate VB still hate VB and others who didn't think VB sucks to start with started this project?

I know, I know, this was too hard for you, but maybe try to sleep a few nights over it, maybe one day you will be able to understand such difficult concepts...

Re:So now it's ok to like VB?

[iBod]

VB is a Rapid Application *development* tool, not a Rapid Application *prototyping* tool.

Of course, many can and do create prototype and throw-away applications using VB, but it is good tool for developing many serious Windows applications.

If the design is right and the code is clean and maintainable, what exactly would be the advantage in recoding it in C++ (assuming execution speed is not an issue and even then, just critical parts can be written in C++ and put in a DLL)?

I have developed app in VB and C++ for years and decide which tool is the best to use at the outset. I have never found it necessary to start out using VB then recode everything in C++.

So, if I were a development manager, why would I pay for the project to be done over again to achieve the same end result?

Re:So now it's ok to like VB?

[witwerg]

I maintain a few VB codebases for work. Only for the past 3 years or so, but, my experience has been the same. All those points are rather annoying.

The situation with boolean expression are a hair (and subtly) worse, I would argue. There is no short circuiting because there are NO LOGICAL operators. In fact, Boolean values are simply 0(all bits 0) and -1(all bits 1), and "not"/"and"/"or" are simply bitwise operators.

This can lead to some very strange issues if you aren't aware of it. Particuarlly when working with COM objects because there is nothing that normalizes boolean values to 0 or -1. I've seen third-party objects that will return 1(i.e. 00000001') for true instead of -1. This is initially ok because internally vb uses the true := non-zero rule applies, but when you do a negation the boolean is filled with '11111110' which is true. So logically in this case:

true := not true

Restating myself, all the issues are annyoing, but having to dip into the WINAPI and The exception handling are probably the most annoying for me.

The only really solution is developing your own work arounds and using other people's(or move to .NET). I have a couple VB addins I use in addition to a couple that I've written. VB Addin Programming seems inadequently documented... A friend and I also wrote some code that kludges object expection handling on top of the numeric errs that can be thrown, controlled by a global object (with decent optional but unrefined execution profiling).

Everything, though, is still rather ugly, but workable. While augments to VB do take some of the edge off, I too have been eyeballing Delphi.

Killer Application

[Anonymous Coward]

Rant and hiss all you want. This application has the potential to move an entire generation of mid-40ish "Windows and VB4 still works for me" people - who are basically stating the truth - to Linux / OSS enviroments.

And no Blahblah about Eclipse Basic being somewhere close to RAD or QTDevelop being a sort-of half way kinda RAD tool and "whats all the excitement about, I only need Perl and a few bazillion extra libs and dependency resoltions to write nice TK-Apps that are ugly as hell" will change that.

As for me, I'm sold. Congratulations to the Gambas team.

Re:Killer Application

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think the point is to port apps actually, but port working forces.
Someone who did several years of VB devel. and wants to have a look at linux can be assured to find an VB _equivalent_ on the linux platform.
Someone who's discovering linux and whishes to begin programming, this one will also find a _simple_ alternative.

Re:Killer Application

[AbbyNormal]

Absolute Bingo. Nice post.

I see a major opportunity for Gambas and the hundreds (or thousands) VB/ASP shops that cannot afford to take the .NET plunge. An intermediary step would be a Godsend (with eventual consideration to a .NET interpreter..maybe).

There are only three items that are missing: MSSQL support, Windows environment support, ASP/Apache.

Even if companies do not decide to run it on a Linux platform, they would still want to switch their VB to Gambase because: a.) no lockin, b.) Support is ongoing. c.) Eventually they can upgrade to .NET (or Gambas writes a VB.NET Mono plugin).

I, and the many VB shops out there salute you Gambas (especially when you add the Perl Regex stuff). Great work, and PLEASE keep pushing for a Windows GTK version.

I don't believe...

[Vo0k]

I don't believe any open source solution in any near future could crush the Microsoft alternatives in the software development field.
The problem is that HERE marketing matters. Home users are free to pick a web browser or operating system of their choice. But when a big system for some business/industry is being developed, the platform decisione are made by the middle-to-upper management. And these guys really -believe- what Microsoft marketing people tell them. So the programmers, people who actually know a thing about the options don't really get the voice in most of the projects. "So... This guy at EXPO told me Visual Basic would solve all these problems. So we write the application in Visual Basic." There is no way the majority of the "big fishes" in programming could accept a hardly known free software language instead of the "famous, widely used Microsoft product" without the right marketing, and without some large funding behind the marketing...

Unless Sun, IBM or someone else with enough $$$ and not too much love for Microsoft backs up the project and takes care of marketing and promoting it. But the chances are very slim.

It may start here...

[wcitechnologies]

I think VB is a doorway for programmers who eventually get serious. Anybody who knows anything knows that VB isn't the language to program enterprise-class software. Still, VB is a good way to get the kids interested, and some of them grow up to be engineers. If this language really is the Linux equivelant to VB, you OSS guys should be happy, considering how this, (or something like this) may affect Linux's future.

Re:Cluttered IDE

[Lussarn]

I don't think they are copying either windows or mac, they are merely following what have been the unix way for the last 10 years. On unix we have virtual desktops and they are there to be used.

Crush VB for database apps?

[Jugalator]

Now, if it ran in Windows too, it would truly crush VB for database applications.

Hrm.. Like the Windows flag is burnt?
I wonder if it was really that necessary to be so childish, right on their front page.

It doesn't help their cause anyway, or defeat generalizations about "Linux being for childish basement geeks".

Oh well... To my question: Why would it crush VB .NET 2003 for database apps? Do you mean db apps in general? Or just a specific kind of db apps? What's so revolutionary about this package in that area? I couldn't find anything on their Gambas feature list even mentioning databases, except:

"Finish and clean the database component."

Oh, the irony!

Re:DOA

[Anonymous Coward]

One glance at your post tells me you are trolling. So one look at a screenshot that is probably meant to showcase as much of the application as possible tells you that it is cluttered and unusable?

I'm impressed.

I'm also getting tired of this constant whining about not doing it the MS way. Interestingly I never see these kind of complaints about OSX software, though even MS products are not using an MDI interface on OSX. So not doing it the MS way certainly doesn't say anything about the usability of an app.

Re:Cluttered IDE

[Tarwn]

I agree with your sentiments, despite what other may say. That is/was the biggest turn off for Gimp for me. I actually find it to be an obstacle in using the program because there is nothing tying them together (maybe it's a coneptual gap, I don't like having to think about it every time). I don't necessarally need my applications to all have slide-out tool panes like Visual Studio, but a background container with the option to dock windows on the sides or toolbar does wonders for keeping all the various bits of the application together, allowing me to focus on doing what I am doing without accidentally switching focus to a browser or terminal I left open.
Sure once I get everything shuffled to another window I don't worry as much, and some people might be comfortable "outside the box" with their applications, but I would prefer to stay inside the box, thank you. I don't think this is a revolutionary interface design concept, I think it is an interesting one that doesn't quite work as well as was expected.

If I am going to work on an application then my preference would be to siomply work on it, without pausing every 5 seconds to think about where to find a toolbox i sent to the background. Now in window 3 of 4 and crap, did I lose 4 somewhere?
That's one of the elements I liked about Paintshop Pro: the floating, dockable, collapsible menus. Everything was kept in the one application area and you could pretty much put the boxes anywhere you wanted, but being inside that window made the toolboxes naturally belong to the application. Plus I could get more screen acreage simply by allowing them to collapse, without losing them into the background.

BS

[brunes69]

Loads of top-level tool windows is a usability nightmare. It os not intuitive at all, and a new user has a hell of a time figuring out what things are in what window.

There is a reason both the Gnome and KDE projects have HCI guidelines. And this app doesn't follow either of them.

Cluttered IDE

[Quixadhal]

I have to agree. I abhorr interfaces like the Gimp (which is a fine program, shackled with a not so fine UI), and find it far too easy to lose the various toolbars under other things. It might not be so bad if clicking on any one UI element would bring the entire thing to the top...

--off topic--

This just reminds me that Linux peope STILL can't develop their own breakthroughs. We STILL feel compelled to try and mimic whatever comes out of Redmond, or those fruity mac people (*grin*, my Mom has one so I feel justified in that jab).

What's the number one complaint people have with Microsoft's GUI? Inconsistancy. What's the one thing Linux (or any Open Source movement for that matter) will never really have? Consistancy. Yeah, call me a doomsayer, but as long as everyone clings to the adage of allowing everyone to code whatever they like, there will never BE a consistant standard interface on the Linux desktop.

Shoot, X is almost (more than?) 20 years old now and we still can't get a single consistant cut-and-paste buffer that works across every X application!

Sorry for the rant, but I'm just horrified that the desktop movement has made so little progress since I started using Linux back in 1994. Back then, an X11R5 desktop on a 486/66 with 16M of ram using TVTWM as a window manager would run circles around the equivalent win95 box. Now, every time I pull up X with KDE and type "free", I cringe seeing how much memory it sucks up. I use linux for my servers, and love it... but I use that other OS for my desktop as I don't have to fight with it every day.

Re:Best logo

[yerfatma]

Poor craftsmen, tools . . . all that.

Just one guy

[spectrokid]

I think it is amazing such a big project can be done by just one guy working on it part-time (read his personals). If he can do such a thing on his own, then how comes we haven't had super-duper RAD tools with IDE in Linux for years?

To all the cry babies

[codepunk]

I actually downloaded the source a few days ago and compiled and installed it. I find that it is a extremely well done VB like environement for linux. Any day I can get a decent programming ide complete with the source and licensed under the GPL it is a wonderful day.

1. The app uses multiple windows but guess what if you don't like that then make it a single window interface. The ide is written in gambus so a little refactoring and you can have a single window interface.

2. It is extremely complete for a 1.0 release and the design of the interpreter, debugger, libraries are all rather complete.

3. I can build a gui front end to a my sql table with barely a dozen lines of code.

4. The language is not actually VB it is improved and corrected VB.

5. It had a project packager that is extremely well done.

6. The forms designer is fairly top notch and easy to work with.

Ok when all you cry babies get done writing your own interpreter, compiler, ide and make it work even half as well come back and talk to me, till then shut up. No I have no involvment in the project other than using it a little but I applaud the developer for his efforts.

It is a gift people, treat it as such...

Re:An alternative approach: PyQt

[codepunk]

Dude I love python as much as the next python coder but QT designer does not actually support python natively does it? Last time I used it I could build a interface with it then I had to write a bunch of code to load the screens, set event handlers and a bunch of other crap. This gambas thing is one language but it is all integrated not a afterthought hack.

Gambas 1.0 - a free gift

[UglyMike]

God, you people can be such bastards....
Here is a guy, single handedly building a full, self-hosted, VB-like development environment on Linux as a gift to the community and all you people do is shit all over his project.
Why Basic? Why QT? Why MDI? Why funny pictures on the main page? Why not .NET?
Python is better! Realbasic is better! Mono is better!
It's open source for crying out loud!! Don't like MDI? Change it! (after all it is self hosting) Think REALBasic is better? Fine, go buy that then! Prefer Mono's VB? OK, sit around and wait a bit longer. Don't like the site's informal look? Where is your mockup of a better one then?
Let's face it. The only reason you're all bitching (most of you anyways..) is that you're too THICK to change any of it! I'm reading the developer forum and I see no patches coming in from any of you offering SDI, GTK+, .NET compatibility, Python plug-ins etc.
Bunch of ingrates....

Re:Gambas 1.0 - a free gift

[WinterSolstice]

No, big difference.
Movie critics are complaining about a multi-million dollar production they PAID to see.
Food critics are complaining about a meal they PAID to eat.

These idiots are like the bitch who goes to a potluck without anything to share, and just complains about all the food.

You don't have to like this stuff, you don't have to use this stuff, but you don't have to be a jerk about it.

Hell, I hate the layout of the SAPNet system, I hate the layout of the MSKB. But I pay to access them all the same. This guy? His stuff is at least free.

Personally, I like Gambas, and I like the site. I don't do BASIC much anymore, but I might actually try it out. After all, anything so many slashdotters compain about has to be good.

-WS