[graphiteman]

There has been a lot of disagreement over whether REALbasic or Cocoa is better. Therefore I would like to have a debate on this very subject.

Post points about which you think is better, and this way I think people will see the benefits and drawbacks to each program.

When posting points, please use the list-start, list-item, and list-end buttons below the text box where you enter your message. THis will make points easier to see and read.

Let the deabte begin!

[eevyl]

Oh please please let the debate END

The question is not which one is better, but which one should each one of us use in a particular project.

But my 2 cents:

Cocoa -> Mac OS X
REALbasic -> Mac OS, Mac OS X, Windows

Nuff said!

[Mactoid]

• As eevyl said, cross-platform compatibility is a major advantage of RB, however
  
• I think more importantly, even if you are writing code only for OS X it comes down to how much effort you want to put into your programming
• If you want to just write Q&D (quick and dirty) little programs for you to use, go ahead use Realbasic
• on the other hand, if you want to write a major program, or something that you want to distribute, it should probably be written in Cocoa, because Cocoa apps are much smaller and faster.
• be aware, RB you can pick up in several minutes and be writing functional programs in less than an hour, however Cocoa's learining curve is substantially steeper (not too steep, but steep compared to RB)

btw, i have no idea what these list tags will do to my message, but i threw them in for Graphiteman

[eevyl]

Originally posted by Mactoid:
<STRONG>

• If you want to just write Q&D (quick and dirty) little programs for you to use, go ahead use Realbasic
• on the other hand, if you want to write a major program, or something that you want to distribute, it should probably be written in Cocoa, because Cocoa apps are much smaller and faster.

</STRONG>

I do not see the whole advantage of Cocoa here. If you are a bad developer, you can make crap software with Cocoa, no matter how good it is. So, if you know how to develop properly, you can make good applications with REALbasic, just as good or better than Cocoa ones.

[ 09-11-2001: Message edited by: eevyl ]

[Angus_D]

If you have a look at RB's cross-platform support, you will notice that both the Carbon support and the Win32 support are substandard. In fact, while Real Software was demoing the LCEdit+ software (for controlling lighting boxes, see http://www.cds.nl) at MWNY as an example of what can be done with REALbasic on the Mac, the developers were complaining to the company about problems with RB under Win32 which meant that their product did not run.

I would also like to point out that Matthijs van Duin, who wrote this software, has had to work around numerous flaws in the environment, and had to poke at low levels into the RB runtime using plugins.

Despite the fact you can write bad code in any language with any API, RB kind of encourages it. Also, it is already bloated, with the runtime immediately bloating your app out to about 1-2MB for even a bare bones shell with no functionality.

RB is also slow. Especially on OS X.

RB is, however, a very good introduction to OO programming concepts.

RB costs money. GCC, PB and IB are free.

[iloveOSX]

---RB is slow on OSX.

Nope. I have written multiple projects on X and my users can't tell that its written in rb.

--RB is bloated

true as mentioned before this will change in 4.0 (jan) but i for one could care less.


--RB cost money

God forbid we have to PAY for a tool that reduces development time AND let's us make money. We wouldn't want that would we!

[iloveOSX]

--cross platform

depends on the project. some are good some have to put in work arounds. but please tell name us one product that builds cross platform apps perfectly?? (java?)

best thing a person can to is spend a weekend with the rb and cocoa tutorials (if they only want osx apps) and decide for themselves.

[moreno]

RB sucks.
Cocoa is the OS native language. RB can only take advantage of Carbon - and - its slow on OSX (try to write a app on OSX with RB yaakkk).

the point is that RB is a high level language - for newbies, and for small applications that don't take advantage of Cocoa features.

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by moreno:
<STRONG>RB sucks.
Cocoa is the OS native language. RB can only take advantage of Carbon - and - its slow on OSX (try to write a app on OSX with RB yaakkk).

the point is that RB is a high level language - for newbies, and for small applications that don't take advantage of Cocoa features.</STRONG>

I would like to point out that Carbon is also a native API on OS X. Cocoa is also not a language, it's an API built on the Objective-C language. REALbasic is an IDE that uses the REALbasic API and the REALbasic language.

And yes, RB on Mac OS X is DOG-SLOW! If you can't see that then you must be using a dual 800.

And by the way, development time in Cocoa is well recognised as being one of the shortest in the industry, AND it's actually built on a proper language. I mean, gcc on PPC is pants compared to gcc on Intel, but it's still waaaay ahead of REALbasic's crap compiler.

Anyway, I personally hate RB. I have had it waste enough of my time over the year that I used it that I am steering well clear of it. In fact, Real Software is a joke in my eyes. They shipped RBv2.0 saying that it had "win32 cross-compilation" built-in. In reality, it's still not up to scratch. They shipped RB v3.0 saying it had "Carbon built-in" (despite the fact they had previously said that Carbon support would be a free or very cheap upgrade to 2.0 users and be in 2.5), but that was only even slightly usable in 3.1 and later. For some reason, RS seems to have chosen to do all their drawing using CoreGraphics, which for them is probably not a wise thing to do. If you have ever tried to type into the code editor on OS X, you will know that it is so unresponsive that it's a constant pain to use.

Oh, and there are still plenty of graphical glitches in RB on OS X.

If you still want to use RB to develop your apps, I'm afraid I'll have to join with the legions of developers who laugh down on you (I could never understand why they did this when I was using REALbasic, which at the time I thought was great -- yes, I used to love RB). You can see how people laugh at RB because of sites like this: http://realcrap.badmoon.org/

Anyway, it's your choice whether you want to stick with RB or not. If you do, then it's your loss, but then I guess there's nothing I can do about it.

[olePigeon]

Oh please. Why is this even a debate? REALbasic is so completely bloated and slow. Why the hell does anyone need a 10MB version of TextEdit?

3MBs for a program that just opens a window? I can do the exact same thing in C and it's less than 1k.

By the way, Badmoon is a piece of **** . It's probably one of the few places you can still find people who actually make a mockery of others dying of cancer, women getting raped, and yes, even terrorists killing 20,000+ people. It's a sad, disgusting community of sexually deprived teenagers who have nothing better to do and have no conception of real life.

[parallax]

COCOA SI BETTAR!

Seriously, RealBasic is so buggy, yucky, bloated, slow, and expensive, other than cross-platform-ness or torture, I can't see why you'd use it.

[iloveOSX]

again, I think the best test will be to try both.

i don't know what you mean by slow since LOTS of things are slow on X. lots of things are slow in osx. build the app you want then decide.since it is not the case with my program.

I would be willing to bet a dozen donuts though if we got 30 newwbies in a room and kept them there for a weekend, a large percentage of newbies could build a semi complex app in rb (and unserstand what they did) where ( i think a very small) percentage could do the same in cocoa.

Not to insult you code gods but COCOA is not easy. let's repeat. it is very difficult for people new to the concept of programming. if they have a c background then i agree they should go the cocoa route.

but if all they have is a "hypercard" background you are crazy if you think they are going to build and contiinue to build complex apps in RB mUCH faster than cocoa.

and if they want to bring their apps overe to windows or OSX they are **** out of luck by going the cocoa route.(BTW no one gave another cross platform suggestion) what if they are building share ware and want to make money off the hundreds of millions of windows/os9 users. not just the few hundred thousand osx users. (although if thats what they want that's cool too.)

I stand by my suggestion that newbies should spend a weekend with both and use the one they like best.don't listen to code snobs. they seem to forget that building you app is goall one.


people reading this should realize that for some reason there is a hatred of RB. i think it has to do with the stupid name. its much more like java then basic.I't reminds me of high schools girls making fun of the girl who dress differently.


speaking of java, i'd love to hear from any doing crossplatform stuff with java. If it is then the guy that asked that qestion should look at that solution too since jbuilder is shipping soon (although it costs GASSSSSPPPPPP money.)

[Angus_D]

Originally posted by iloveOSX:
<STRONG>i don't know what you mean by slow since LOTS of things are slow on X. lots of things are slow in osx. build the app you want then decide.since it is not the case with my program.</STRONG>

Lots of things are slow on OS X, but RB is like wading through Lyon's Golden Syrup.

<STRONG>and if they want to bring their apps overe to windows or OSX they are **** out of luck by going the cocoa route.(BTW no one gave another cross platform suggestion) what if they are building share ware and want to make money off the hundreds of millions of windows/os9 users. not just the few hundred thousand osx users. (although if thats what they want that's cool too.) </STRONG>

Yes, this is a sad disadvantage to Cocoa. Once upon a time Apple did have Yellow Box for Windows, but they stupidly axed it for no good reason. *sigh*

<STRONG>people reading this should realize that for some reason there is a hatred of RB. i think it has to do with the stupid name. its much more like java then basic.I't reminds me of high schools girls making fun of the girl who dress differently.</STRONG>

RB is nothing like Java. It is nothing to do with the name. It's the fact that it is a buggy, sluggish heap of crap.

<STRONG>speaking of java, i'd love to hear from any doing crossplatform stuff with java. If it is then the guy that asked that qestion should look at that solution too since jbuilder is shipping soon (although it costs GASSSSSPPPPPP money.)</STRONG>

Java/Swing is probably worse than RB, speed-wise, and Swing is just vomit on OS X anyway (the "Aqua skin" just doesn't feel right, and is buggy in places, in fact there are such serious issues that for Tube we had to disable it and make it use the standard metal look and feel (swing.defaultlaf=javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLook AndFeel)).