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KBasic


NelsonN
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Looks great! In fact I have only two reasons to have XP beside of Linux. First reason is a gorcious mp3-player Foobar2000 and second is Visual Basic. Now it seems, that XP's expected lifetime in my computer just dropped dramaticaly. If I could only get Linux-version of Foobar2000...

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Visual Basic has to be the worst thing that has happened to programming.

 

QBasic is decent. KBasic seems like a port of that to Linux. I especially like QBasic's support for simple graphics, you can make a small game easily.

 

Though it's non-free, I sympathize with the author, it's still for the good of Linux. Maybe in better times it will become free.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I've now been a Linux fan and heavy user for about 2 years. I'm also a programmer / analyst by trade. I'm well versed in C/C++, Java, the various Web development tools, and yes, Visual Basic.

 

So I could not disagree with you more on VB. While VB is not the best tool for hardcore systems development or over the counter software, VB is probably the best rapid application development tool, ever, in all platforms and environments. VB is one of the few things MS has done right, from a technological perspective, as well as a business perspective. There will always be a need for good RAD tools, that are accessable for general IT personell, in order to make quick and dirty applications. Businesses need this.

 

So, from that standpoint, Visual Basic is one of the best things to happen to programming. It brought productive programming to non programming specialists, who needed to get the job done.

 

Personally, I now prefer C and C++, as well as various scripting languages (Perl, Python), as well as application server languages (JSP, PHP, ASP). But for what Visual Basic was designed for, nothing is better.

 

Sadly, with the Unix/C snobbery that is so prevailant in the Linux/OSS world, there has been nothing coming close to VB's RAD abilities for the Linux environment. Linux enthusiasts, as well as those basing their businesses on Linux, need to get over the anti VB snobbery/mentality. Basic, VB, and VBA are very popular because they are easy and they work and they enable less skilled programmers or general systems admins get their jobs done. The Linux world needs to get a clue.

 

There is a big opportunity for Linux here. VB6 is going to be reaching it's end of life, and VB.Net is essentially a completely new language that is more similar to Java than VB6. This has totally pissed off the nearly 3.5 million VB6 developers out there. MS should have limited their Java clone to C#, then let VB be VB (perhaps add VB7). Now Linux, with QBasic (and the QT designer tool is awesome so I suspect that QBasic will be awesome as well), has the great potential to lure some of those disillusioned VB6 developers.

 

In short, QBasic sounds wonderful. It has the great potential to lure more people to the Linux platform.

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First: I don't want to start any stupid "my dad's programming language will cut your dad's language's throat in 0.5 seconds (I have heard it can be done in 0.49 sec, if code is well optimized with xxx)"-flame wars. I know that Linux wouldn't exist without C-language series, so my respect to those who use it every day.

 

I agree with jfsgr8. I'm just bored with people, who claim automatically everything Microsoft has done is *hit. Even I'm now a solid programmer (mainly PHP, VB), I would have never started programming anything without RAD tools. It allows intuitive coding and quick protos - I'll be the only user of that program, so there's no need for strong commenting and simple structures. But - also good coding cenventions can be used - if you want to have scrappy code, you are able to create it no matter what the language is.

 

As I said before, VB6 is the biggest reason I still have XP beside my Mandrake. If VB will be ported to Linux, I'm sure it will gain more developers and users. IMHO, the worst thing what has happened to programming is to stick with old, often false beliefs and divide programmers into excellent © and loser coders (VB). In the end, our goals are still same: to make software to make some things easier and some things possible: sometimes we even get those two promises in same package...

 

Hopefully snobby attitude towards VB developers would end. Linux really needs a competent RAD tool to have a bigger group of developers involved with Linux. jfsgr8 actually said that all so well, that I have nothing to add. So NelsonN, we are ready!

Edited by Huerzo
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well arguing about VB is hardly productive....

 

I tend to think it was good for attracting people to programming but bad for encouragement of poor style and actually lockin into the MS models of doing everything..

 

say what you like but it only works in Windows so its pretty restricted, and it works by default with the jet DB engine which is pretty damned crappy...

 

Linux does need newer and better RAD tools... I agree but not like VB...

 

I dont think its snobbery per se. I did loads of VB development and also lots of .asp when it came out and im pretty embarassed now...

not becuase of the coding but becuase it locked my company into MS rubbish until I learned enough PERL to port it to unix...

 

My perl coding was probably dirtier becuase it was a quick hack but at least now the same content runs on UNIX/linux and winBlows.

 

Anyway, lets keep this friendly, I didnt see Arthur coming over as eliteist snobbery but then i agree largely with his point...

 

I for one eagerly await more/better RAD tools in linux :D

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those were well said points. Although I was surprised at the magnitude of the response to my one-sentence rant, I have to admit it was irresponsible to make such a statement. I was just feeling pissed off that day.

 

No, I don't think everything MS makes is *hit (in your words)...QBasic was MS, and I said it was good. I just think VB makes very badly designed programs much easier to make. Sure, RAD has a place in business. But many companies think, they don't need real programmers for something, and just get a chemical engineer to write a program since it's so easy. Which results in bad design with future problems of data integrity and compatibility that their successors struggle with. I was one of those people, which is probably why I'm biased.

 

I'm very glad that you had a better experience with VB. It's not VB's fault that those badly designed programs got written, but the company's fault that they could cut corners in making an important program and not suffer any consequences, and people who promote RAD without promoting good programming practices.

 

PS. I'm just curious, but could you name any popular, major programs entirely written in VB? (this is an honest question, I'm not trying make a point)

Edited by arthur
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I've to also confess, that also my words were absolutely too straight-forward. Sorry Arthur, if you felt offended. Your one-liner made me thought, that you belong to group of people that spits over their shoulder when they hear words Micro and Soft just to be like the others...

 

Arthur. I can't either remember any major software written VB. But I can remember numerous small progs I've written to myself. And for me, it's the thing that really makes difference. Without VB, I think I wouldn't have any of those. I haven't never read a hand written book, but I have a wild guess that pen isn't useless :D...

 

Just hoping, that so many other people could find that programming can be fun. Restrcitions and not's just make it feel like a pain: for example my bad experiences from those "good habits" are from coding courses where we were taught those "good coding practices" more than coding itself. You know, "Hello worlds" having more comments than code. So many promising coders were bored to death by limiting their talents with those rules.

 

I neglected comments (etc.) for a long time, but nowadays I understand well why they're necessary. But please don't make programming too serious - it's a really good way to develop yourself as a problem solver. And with VB, you can focus to programming instead of "boring stuff". But then you've to also accept, that your code is not worth publicing...but you learn coding structures quickly, if you need them. Afterwards it's pretty easy to learn those good coding practices, when coding and program solving are learnt. That learning curve, you know...

 

OK, this has maybe nothing to do with KBasic, but hopefully my point is now clear. Like Gowator said, arguing VB (put any technique, language, sport etc there) is worthless. Especially, when all of us seem to agree that there's a need for a good RAD tool in Linux...

Edited by Huerzo
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PS. I'm just curious, but could you name any popular, major programs entirely written in VB? (this is an honest question, I'm not trying make a point)

 

My own company's software, called RFGen, has a very large portion of it's source code (nearly 2 million lines of code) written in Visual Basic. Here it is: http://www.rfgen.com

 

If you visit this site, click on the "RFGen Users" tab. This lists many of our major customers. RFGen is deployed in 50% of fortune 100 companies, including deployments that have up to 170 users per server, handling thousands of transactions per day, interacting with enterprise class databases, ERP (SAP and PeopleSoft), and screen mapping hosts (vt220 to Unix/Linux, tn3270 to IBM mainframes, and tn5250 to AS400).

 

In short, this is living proof that Visual Basic can most certainly be used to produce first rate, proven, enterprise class software.

 

RFGen was originally written entirely in Visual Basic, but has recently been in the process of being converted to C++, because we do not want to use .Net (for various reasons). I'm also trying to lobby the main developer to choose QT, GTK+, or wxWidgets for the future interface (which still needs to be converted from VB), to acheive cross platform capabilities. RFGen already connects to other platforms, but only runs on Windows. I would love it if we could install it on Mandrakelinux! ;-)

 

All that said, since VB is so easy, it does enable bad programmers to produce bad code. But the same can be said with many other languages, not the least of which is Perl, which has the reputation for producing indecipherable code, even for those who originally produced it (and I'm not knocking Perl, because I think it's a great language).

 

So, a Visual Basic -like language/IDE for the Linux platform can only be a wonderful thing. Let's let novice programmers, non-programmers, general systems admins and other IT personell be productive in Linux. :-)

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QBasic was the Interpreter that replaced GWBASIC, and is rooted in Quick Basic. I hated QB 4.5 with a passion.

 

Any Basic that does not support Random Access Files is not worth looking at.

 

VB is more versatile than most would want to admit. One can hope that KBasic will be the same.

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