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the valdok · May 22, 2001, 04:40 PM

This may be a silly question to ask, but since I do not own REALbasic yet, and I plan on making a few small applications for myself, what programming language does REALbasic use?
If there is more than one it uses, what's recommended to learn?
Keep in mind I am using OS X, and I have little programming experience.
(Applescript (small amount), HTML, DHTML, and a smidgen of XML I have learned.)

eevyl · May 22, 2001, 05:36 PM

Well, the language REALbasic uses is... REALbasic! It looks like BASIC a lot, and it is easy to learn. Just get the manuals in PDF from REALsoftware and some examples. Some knowledge of object oriented programming is usefull, but not necesary.

Good luck!

Lorin Rivers · May 22, 2001, 06:13 PM

Furthermore, there's a free trial version available for download, so check it out!

parallax · May 22, 2001, 07:27 PM

No! No!

(If you know me, you know I'm biased against REALbasic.)

1) It costs money. (X's Dev tools are completely free and offer a lot more power)

2) REALbasic apps are buggy. You _will_ know when an app's written with REALbasic. Just look for truncated buttons, unexpected quits, &c.

3) BASIC is a screwy language in itself, and it's really no way to start programming. Plus, all common modern languages are derived from C/C++.

graphiteman · May 23, 2001, 06:40 AM

I started on REALbasic and I have found it to be a powerful tool to write apps in. There are occassional crashes, but the ease of development outweighs the drawbacks of the product. I'd reccomend downloading the demo and trying it out, and then make the decision.

PS-If you have any questions, I'd be happy to try to answer them for you.

DaveGee · May 23, 2001, 07:01 AM

I have to side with parallax on this one... With one caveat.

If you NEVER intend on doing any other programming say in C/C++/OOC/etc then REALbasic should be okay.

If however you do see yourself moving to the world of 'C' then please take my advice and DO NOT use REALbasic or PHP or Perl as a starting point. TRUST ME ON THIS ONE!

Those other languages while good (for what they do) tend to teach you (or allow you to use) very bad coding habits that will clash with C big time. Well okay to be fair those habits are sometimes only bad when you want to move to C but either way trying to UNLEARN something is much harder than learning something.

I came from a Pet CBM -> Commodore-64 -> MS DOS machine (all running different versions of basic) and let me tell you now that I want to learn C you have no idea how much harder it is. Basic has allowed me to become a (sometimes) sloppy coder when it comes to things like variable use and stuff like that just aint gonna fly in C.

So in short... if you don't ever see yourself moving to 'the next step' then RB should do fine but make it easier on yourself and start with C if that is the language that you think you'll move to eventually.

Dave

jmassung · May 23, 2001, 10:21 AM

I've come from a big C background (UNIX and Win32). When I got my first Mac (love 'em) and wanted to program, but really didn't want to learn a whole new API -- REALbasic was perfect! And it let me compile [most] of my programs for Windows, too!

However, I have to agree with paralax and add 1 tidbit of information: REALbasic (IMHO) is not yet suited for Mac OS X. It is good at what it does, but is turning into a Mac version of Windows (in that it is trying to stay compatible with too many old things). It doesn't support Sheets, Drawers, anti-aliased drawing or any other Mac OS X only technology (because it compiles Carbon -- not Cocoa). It doesn't even let you use the Preferences menu in your application without some funky coding. And the user interface designer is still sloppy with Mac OS X controls (things don't line up, etc.)

I believe that REALsoftware will address these issues, and it will be a decent language for OS X, but not now. Hope this helps!

Jeff

Angus_D · May 23, 2001, 02:20 PM

REALbasic is heavily unoptimized. A friend of mine found out that the following code:
s = str(0)

executes around 11000 instructions (lines of assembly).

However, I got into programming for Macs in REALbasic. Plenty of people I know who knew C found that it's a very good way of figuring out objects. You can fall into bad programming habits in RB, but you can also write quite well-structured programs in RB. You can also fall into bad programming habits in other languages.

Really, it doesn't matter what language you start in. Once you learn how to use variables and functions, and also increasingly objects, you can learn most languages with not much difficulty. Almost everything has C-like syntax these days, though.

graphiteman · May 23, 2001, 03:09 PM

Originally posted by jmassung:
...It doesn't support Sheets, Drawers, anti-aliased drawing or any other Mac OS X only technology (because it compiles Carbon -- not Cocoa)....

I would like to point out that REALbasic 3.2 draws 99% of text anti aliased.

As far as sheets are concerned, there is a simple workaround: Set the sheet window to have a MacProcID of 1088 and the frame to Floating Window, and show the sheet like any other window.

Angus_D · May 23, 2001, 03:16 PM

I'd like to point out that Cocoa draws 100% of its text using CoreGraphics, and does it without suffering the slowness that REALbasic appears to. Also, last I heard that sheets workaround caused crashes all over the place and was therefore unusable.

eevyl · May 23, 2001, 03:32 PM

Oh my God! Why do you oh so wonderfull and oh so neat Obj-C/C/C++ developers continue to piss over REALbasic? It reminds me of MS-DOS lamers laughing at Mac users because Macs were like toys.

REALbasic buggy apps are very common because REALbasic is very easy to learn, its serials are around every underground site so poor programmers write poor applications. Good coded apps built with *final* versions of REALbasic usually work good.

For a sample of this, if you have time to loose, go in version tracker and find this two programs: "eeCD" and "iCDc". Their goal is the same (to view and edit the CD Remote Programs file). But I think one of them is better written than the other, just try and guess.

By the way, that "eeCD" thing is the app I want to port to Cocoa. If I want to access to the "CD Remote Programs" file, I need resources support in Cocoa. But oh! The so powerfull API do NOT have resource fork access, so I have to wrap around Carbon. I may try, someday.

[This message has been edited by eevyl (edited 05-23-2001).]

ryochiji · May 23, 2001, 07:17 PM

My suggestion would be to learn C first, become proficient in it, then move on to whatever other language works best for what you're trying to do.

I've known very smart hobbyist programmers get stuck in one language because they didn't have the kind of foundation C gives you. Once you learn C and move to a different language, you may never want to go back to C again, but it'll help you in the long run.

muchfresh · May 24, 2001, 03:14 PM

I really hope RB continues to improve. There maybe a lot of haters in this corner, but this world is full of Basic coders. I think RB is a good thing and could be a really good thing for OSX. From what I have read RB does have limitations

Slow program execution
Large file sizes
unstable executables
Doesn't take advantage of OSX features
Needs better database tools
Needs reporting module

I personally think 90% of all code for windows would be a lot easier to develop in VB. Most developers don't need the power and flexability of C. I like Basic RAD tools for the same reason I like FileMaker Pro. No it does't have every feature, it isn't the fastest and doesn't generate the tightest code. But if developers were a little more flexable on the final product I believe tools like basic and FMPro could save lots of development time.