Free IDE Gambas Reaches 1.0 359
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.
So now it's ok to like VB? (Score:2, Insightful)
Killer Application (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I don't believe... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:So now it's ok to like VB? (Score:2, Insightful)
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:Cluttered IDE (Score:4, Insightful)
Crush VB for database apps? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hrm.. Like the Windows flag is burnt [sourceforge.net]?
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
"Finish and clean the database component."
Oh, the irony!
Re:DOA (Score:3, Insightful)
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:So now it's ok to like VB? (Score:3, Insightful)
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? (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Cluttered IDE (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:So now it's ok to like VB? (Score:3, Insightful)
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...
BS (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a reason both the Gnome and KDE projects have HCI guidelines. And this app doesn't follow either of them.
Cluttered IDE (Score:3, Insightful)
--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:So now it's ok to like VB? (Score:3, Insightful)
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:Best logo (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Killer Application (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Just one guy (Score:3, Insightful)
To all the cry babies (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Gambas 1.0 - a free gift (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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+,
Bunch of ingrates....
Re:Killer Application (Score:3, Insightful)
I see a major opportunity for Gambas and the hundreds (or thousands) VB/ASP shops that cannot afford to take the
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
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.
Re:Gambas 1.0 - a free gift (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Re:So now it's ok to like VB? (Score:2, Insightful)
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:
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.