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[RD]

Hi

Ok i dont believe im about to say this but...

I've been looking at my faviroute programming language of all time and its gotta be vb (or vb like) and as a result ive been looking at many vb like apps such as gambas, REALbasic etc etc and have come to the conclustion that i would like to BUY yes thats right buy a vb like app for Linux and the only one i have seen is $400 or £239.95 and thats REALbasic i just wanna know if and what thoughts you have with REALbasic ? i know the lxf team has used it at some point.

I think/know im over all this dual boot thing as i've not had windows installed for the pas 4 months so i think i can safely say that im 100% Linux.

Any way whats your views...

RD

[overflow]

I think any BASIC is a poor idea. Languages have moved on a lot since BASIC was conceived and while it may have acquired some of the benefits of the new knowledge, any enhancements to the language will be bolted on.

You are much better off with a language conceived as object oriented from the start, such as Python, Java or Ruby. Languages with proper exceptions handling and intrinsic advanced data types like lists and dictionaries. (OK, Java doesn't have intrinsic dictionaries.)

I really wouldn't spend money on BASIC.
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overflow

[RD]

hmm, pitty i dont like python as much as basic , i do what i need to do in python but thats all though i must use it for quickrip (this seems to be taking a long time to sort out)
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[linuxgirlie]

Why do you want basic?? If you can do python why not just try bash, its not all that bad and pretty easy to learn.
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[RD]

I like basic dunno why lol, like i said python is great dont get me wrong but there is just some thing about it, ive been using python for about 3yrs now and today while i was working on some thing i though i really dont like it. maybe i should just stick to C, now theres a language i do like, though im not the best at it lol
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[Flea]

It all depends on what you want to do, what you know and what you *like*. If you know BASIC, enjoy using it and you don't need anything fancy*, why not use BASIC? Spending time learning the idiosyncrasies of another language just because it is purportedly "better" is wasted time if you can do what you need in a language you already know!
All programming basically comes down to a handful of commands, that are common to all languages, and the rest is just methodology. It amazes me that there are so many different languages that do 90% of stuff the same as each other! If you are after cross platform compatibility then that is a different matter, otherwise use what you know and like.

However, I would do it with a free BASIC and not 200 quid version!

Dave.


*for example, If you needed to work with an Access database you would obviously choose VB! MySQL, you would probablyuse PHP etc. to make life easier for yourself
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[jdtate101]

You can't go wrong with learning Korn/bash shell programming and Perl. They ALWAYS come in handy. I've always wanted to Learn C properly, but never had the motivation to do it. I guess you need to have a project to work towards (some end goal), otherwise just doing it by book becomes incredibly dull.
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[RD]

I know C, well the absolte basics, python and basic again i know and have used for more than 5 yrs in total. I am thinking cross platform here, thats why i thought realbasic could do the job as that is basic with x-platform ability and lets face it its pritty easy to dragg and drop the gui controls rather than do it all by hand (code that is) yea i know there is glade but i find thats more hassle than its worth to get simple apps running in python or C
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[RD]

Oh and shell/bash is no use to me thats like giving a blind man a tv to watch no good and no use for it.
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[overflow]

[Flea]

[Nigel]

If by pseudocode you mean the step between flowcharting and the actual code itself, I agree it doesn't change much from language to language. And the algorithms in pseudocode will look pretty much the same regardless of the programming language used (maybe not with Cobol, but it's a long time since I used that and I'm trying to forget... )

But when you get down to the programming language itself, they are very different.

For example, the "for" loop syntax is rather different in C than in Basic, and doesn't exist at all in some languages (Fortran uses "DO" instead). GOTO is encouraged in some languages but not others (and IIRC is missing completely from Pascal). The way you pass parameters to functions/subroutines is different. What you get as a return is different (a Basic GOSUB doesn't as far as I'm aware return a value; in Fortran a function does but a subroutine doesn't, in C it's optional but recommended). The way you handle strings is completely different - as an example, try taking one word from the middle of a string and appending it to another string.
Some languages have strong typing (ie you must declare variables before use and you can't, for instance, assign an integer to a character without casting it or the compiler bitches) and others don't. There are some really interesting things you can do with Fortran common blocks and equivalence statements that you have to resort to casting pointers to achieve in C.

I've used quite a few programming languages over the years. I won't claim any one is "better" than the others - I will say that for any given situation (problem + machine + OS + other software + programmer) one language will often be a better choice than the others.

RD - I'm not against paying for compilers per se, but are you sure there's no free one that will do the job ? I recently had a brief play with Gambas, and it seemed pretty reasonable to me - what do you need that it doesn't have ?
And the price for REALBasic does seem quite high - you can get Microsoft compilers for less than that !

[Flea]

Nigel - Absolutely, I agree with everything you say there (at least what I understand, I have never used Fortran). Basically though all the programming languages I have seen are very similar. Sure the syntax of a FOR loop is different in C to BASIC but essentially they do the same thing, iterate over a command(s) n number of times. The hard part for beginners, when learning to program, is in understanding the methods used, not in learning the syntax! The difference in syntax is the "idiosyncrasies" I mentioned above, once you understand a FOR loop you understand what the program is doing regardless of what language it is written in and then the choice of language comes down to what you are comfortable with.

Whether all this holds true of more modern languages I cannot say, I haven't really programmed in years, I realised early on I wasn't going to be making FPS shooters single handed

[RD]

Nigel -

I can use gambas for what i want, if i was to keep this app for Linux only, while i can also use python for the same app and make it x - platform im not 100% happy with it i have spent years with python and have come to the conclustion that while its very eleigent its just not for me. how ever the more of C i use and learn the more i seem to like it, I must agree with you when you say it's big money just for x - platform and c, cpp and python and all the others ive missed are cheaper lol.

Flea -

I agreed with what you said in your first post it would seem that maybe overflow may have miss understood you.
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[Nigel]

C is relatively easy to port from platform to platform, and has a good choice of compilers on both Linux and Windows (including free compilers on both platforms). But how about Java ? Write once, run anywhere (or at least anywhere you can get J2RE from Sun...). Haven't used it much myself, but I believe it's not too bad to learn.
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Hope this helps,

Nigel.