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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.
NI think that the project is good enough to try to get a new design (and a new logo).
This project with a more professional look can be a great success.
Any thesigners out there?
My city: Barcelona.
I haven't used it for a while, but back then it didn't have an MDI interface, which I didn't like.
I prefer all the windows to be under the control of a single parent window. I guess it's the same reason why the GIMP interface is kind of annoying.
However, on Linux, if you give the app it's own desktop to sit on, it's manageable.
-- The doctor said I wouldn't get so many nose bleeds if I just kept my finger out of there!
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I don't like the "spread-out" IDE layout they've got going on here. It reminds me too much of the GIMP, and not in a good way. Perhaps it's my Windows background, but I want a single window with toolboxes and sidebars inside that window (see Visual Studio or KDevelop). This "Let's have a bunch of floating windows with nothing tying them together" approach just makes me think the developers are trying to copy Mac apps rather than Windows apps, with the main drawback of not having a single app menu across the top of the screen to tie everything together (yes, I know that various desktop environments can optionally move app menus to the top of the screen, but how consistent are they? Will they keep the menu from the "Project" window up top when I have the "Toolbox" window focused? Do they know that the "Properties" window and code window are related, and should raise together?). I'm not saying that copying from either is bad or wrong, just that if you're going to do it, do it right.
Consider that already REALBasic 5.5 is loads ahead of this project in that much of the syntax is VB like, yet you can release one app simulataneously on Mac OS 9, OS X, Windows and Linux.
I don't see the advantage here... sure it's not free software but it works DAMN well. I have created a few small utilites internally for my company as well as a little CD Cataloging program just to teach myself the ins and outs of the language, but for those times I want to make something run as a non-web based application for a Mac, this is how I plan to develop the software.
I guess VB is belittled not because of features, but because of the horrid quality of common vb apps.
...and so on...
And for the poor quality of the language.
And 'cause it tends to change and be incompatible from version to version
Will gambas apps be better than vb apps? If they are written by the same monkeys I don't think so.
The release of gambas IS great news, however, simply 'cause now we can reply to the endless "there is no simple RAD solution under linux" rants with "then use gambas, you fool!"
Ciao, Renato
I finished university just before everything had to be object oriented, so I have my base in procedural languages. Granted, I can see a lot of advantages in OO, but why does everything has to be OO these days? Both Gambas and Visual Basic are now OO languages. If I wanted OO I'd chose Java or C++. But what if I don't want OO?
Underholdning.info
But.. why not improve eclipse and python (or some other)?
I have installed eclipse(1) and the plugling for python(2) and i it works really good. Why not improve funtionalities of projects that are working instead of begin another one?
Is a real question, I want not to bother you.
(1)-> http://www.eclipse.org/
(2)-> http://pydev.sourceforge.net/
The last time I used BASIC was 20 years ago, when I was six -- and I'll be damned if I ever come back.
We got so many programming languages -- good ones and bad ones, that is simply doesn't make any sense altogether to use a Cobol-lookalike. Repent, folks!
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
with VB You have to pay to an american company to release under ANY licence.
It's called "tile" and the goal is to make Tk look native on all platforms, in a 21st century sort of way.
http://tktable.sourceforge.net/tile/
Combine that with starkits, and you have 0 dependencies. Just distribute one file.
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
I can never understand this attitude towards VB.
The reliability of apps written in VB has nothing to do with the language, and everything to do with the programmer. If you slap some code together, run it to make sure there are no syntax errors and then release it as version 1.0 how is that a fault with Visual Basic?
Without wanting to blow my own trumpet, I get many emails thanking me for my useful, stable programs, every one of which is written in VB. They're not simple apps, either - my major project is over 6 megs of source code.
VB allows me to code efficiently, quickly and with a minimum of errors, and until I come across something which allows me to code even quicker, even more efficiently and with even less errors I'm sticking with it.
I'm not claiming to be some guru level programmer, I'm just pointing out that it's a bit hard blaming VB for bad software just because beginners can dash in and code the World's Best Program in their lunch break.
Anyway, look on the positive side: If all those beginners started out with C# you'd have thousands of crappy, bug-ridden programs written in that language, and the 'VB generates crap' argument would go up in smoke.
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
Well I have two problems with VB.
1: It's slow and easy to write bad code in so it shouldn't be used for anything other than a UI in a multi-tear system and shouldn't be used for large(anything more than a few hundred function points) systems.
Gambas is still slow, so no wins there.
2: VB was incredibly buggy, even for the things it was good for (rapid prototyping, simple to maintain UI's) it would sometimes crash for no apparent reason bot adding an extra hidden text box or a random print seemed to fix things.
With Gambas you have the source so all bugs are shallow.
Having said that there are plenty of good free Java tools out there like JBuilder foundataion or eclipse, so maybe basic has had it's day.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Okay, I installed 1.0 off Debian. I can't even create a new project, because the directory browser window in that step makes it very unclear what directory I'm trying to pick right now as the project directory. And, it won't even work otherwise: either it tells me to pick a valid directory (umm, I suppose I did?), won't let me pick a valid directory (I can choose it all right, but clicking on Next won't do anything!) or randomly picks "/" as the project directory, and it obviously fails because it can't create project there...
And on top of that, when I just started it up, tried to create a new directory in home directory, it actually created "New directory", then said it couldn't use that. Clicking on directories almost randomly didn't make things show up.
Then I had a bright idea: There were examples. I copied one off to a directory of my own. Tried opening it. It couldn't find the project from this directory at all.
At which project dpkg -r mysteriously nuked the whole thing and I just got back waiting for 1.0.2 or 1.1 or something.
I really hate to say this, but this experience sucked. This sort of lack of usability is completely inexcusable. The directory browing window was one of those horrible excuses of directory browsers stolen from Motif and nightmares.
I'm pretty certain the project looks good, and there's definitely a need for a good Basic-based RAD tool, but based on this horror story of mine, there's still some way to go before I can even try it.
That's not true. You have to license the software if you wan't the IDE. You can develop very happily from the command line and compile and distribute or sell till your heart is complete via the .NET SDK. You get free compilers and headers and access to 100% of the features of the .NET runtime.
Plus there are *never* any runtime or distribution royalities.
Ohh, one more thing. If you are a VB programmer or a C# programmer, you should investigate Mono with GTK#.
For anyone who's never seen the error message above: can Gambas programs be compiled and distributed without being packed solid with loads of seperate controls and libraries? Or would the user have to download and install gambas him/herself?
I hate VB. All the program logic tends to get stuffed into all the event handlers and then a lot of (thick) glue has to be poured over everything to tie it all together. I know that's not really the language's fault, but I haven't read many programs in VB that do it differently so it must just be the type of programmers who use VB that are the problem.
http://www.go-mono.com/mbas.html
Regards,
Steve
That's the problem with the Linux KDE/Gnome/etc. environment...they are so fragmented that nobody can make components that will work on all Linux systems.
Suckers.
What else have you tried? I'm doing some VB work at the moment, and I'm finding it bloody horrible - I'd much rather be using python or (ugh) PHP.
VB is full of irritations - the almost-but-not exception handling (ON ERROR GOTO); the horrible inconsistencies, like a different syntax for calling functions and subroutines (WTF?) or having to end each block with a specific keyword (WEND, NEXT, END WITH); the rubbish standard library (Collection is utterly painful compared to the C++ STL, let alone python tuples, lists and dicts).
I guess all this stuff can be got used to, but I would have thought trying any new language would be a breath of fresh air. I'd be interested to hear what you've managed to find that was less good than VB.
It depends on the complexity of the application, etc.
.NET is a different animal -- there's not a compelling reason to use VB.NET over C#. On the .NET side of things, you use whatever language you know and allows you to efficiently implement the code. That could be IronPython or LISP, if you choose, or it could be C# or VB.NET.
VB is great at dealing with applications that take a supported data source, bind it to fields, and provide a user with a mechanism for editing.
The exception handling isn't great, but then none is right now on any front. You have to do substantial coding to get useful information out of a production application, regardless of the language involved, and substantial coding to avoid just dieing with an error message. In a production environment, even if you are using open source applications, the first priority is to get the app back up and running, and the second priorit is to identify why it failed. It's important not to require a core dump, etc. from a production application, because the dump could contain data you don't want exposed to the world (forcing dumps was, at one time, a common technique to obtain passwords, for example).
The begin/end block is purely a matter of taste. Borland used begin/end blocks in Turbo Basic, Quick Basic was a "we're not a clone" of Turbo Basic, and then Visual Basic inherited Quick Basic's syntax. For...Next, etc., were inherited from the original basic syntax, and it was felt to be important that BASIC code require minimal changes.
Having worked on a project that moved from GW Basic to Pro Basic to QuickBasic to Visual Basic to VB.NET, being able to reuse old code helped meet deadlines, but yes, readability wasn't always there. But not having to rewrite every line of code every time we upgraded languages really did help, and there wasn't a way to do that if they watned to change the syntax.
Visual Basic's IDE is very good at generating data bound forms -- that is forms that tie directly to either database files or files from a fixed file proprietary database. It requires very little code to make such applications, and most of that code is dedicated to error handling and graceful recovery.
In contrast, most GUI frameworks on C++ require piles of code and far moer effort. Python, likewise, tends to take actual effort to create these kinds of applications.
VB has traditionally had fairly good string processing, and VB interfaces with other Windows applications extremely well, and with much less code than C++ requires, for example.
If you are doing heavy array processing, you probably want to use C++. C++ is a lot faster at array processing tasks, although it performs less error checking.
If you are doing heavy list processing (which is different), and sometimes for set processing, you probably want to use a LISP derivitive, Python, etc.
You use the right tool for the job.
If your code is acting bloated, and is running rather slow, it's likely and predicted that some loops you will unroll.