Real Software announces the availability of REALbasic 5 for Macintosh. This new version builds smaller applications, improves support for Jaguar (including drawers, brushed-metal windows and toolbars), adds new Internet capabilities, better Unicode support and new server development option.
REAL Software Releases REALbasic 5 for Macintosh
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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With OS X and it’s inheriting of Objective-C and the OPENSTEP classes from NeXT, moving to BASIC again would seem rather horrible.
(e.g) question of taste AND knowledge too!
-A
Choice is the right world
-A
Once you get past using Basic, the IDE can do quite a bit. It’s very fast in dev time, and can cross compile to differing platforms. Also, the app’s performance is quite acceptable. Faster than cocoa. Problem is most programmers are ego freaks and using Basic seems like child’s play. RB can cover a lot of ground now.
REALbasic could be better for Rapid Application Development, specially in the DDBB world.
In the other hand Objective-C and C++ are devoted to vertical application like word proccesors, browsers, drawing applications, engineering…
IMHO the C# the future (.NET on windows, and the mono project on linux/mac /if microsoft doesn’t kill it/). The basic not too lucky language, if you want RAD-oriented language use Object Pascal (Delphi, Kylix, Free Pascal).
Can’t we just kill basic off and be done with it???
Vendors should grab a real structured language with real OO capability like Ruby or Python to get a good, clean rapid prototype language. Basic was already a dinosaur 15 years ago.
yeah, cuz c#, delphi, kylix and free pascal are all just super hot on the mac platform…
>>”Vendors should grab a real structured language with real OO capability like Ruby or Python to get a good, clean rapid prototype language”<<
REALBASIC is used as more than a prototyper. Maybe thats about all Python/Ruby is good for, but some people have other uses;
http://www.realbasic.com/developer/programs/mwrb/list/index.html
Having used RealBasic to build a semi-functional irc program back when RealBasic 2.0 was out I must stay it is a great product.
When you think of it using the ‘Basic’ language and complain about that you are obviously not informed of how RealBasic works. While the synatax is BASIC, I found the language to be a very well thought out and powerful object oriented language.
I think that RealBasic is a great thing to have on the Mac. The only think we need to worry about now is having a big company buying RealBasic and destroying their product…
Look at Visual Basic… Lot of MS stuff is written in VB. Nice to have a Basic that is cross platform. They should port to Linux as well to increase market share.
As others have pointed out, a lot of people associate RB with Atari ROM BASIC, or worse, VB. RB is actually a pretty nice development system. The language by itself isn’t anything to rave about- but it’s the entire package that counts and is really quite impressive. And this is coming from a huge Smalltalk fan, someone who usually doesn’t settle with the confines of a lot of RAD environments. I’ve used RB on a handful of small projects to get a native looking app made up fast. Most of the apps I’ve done with RB were pretty simple, but doing these kind of apps in most environments would take a lot longer.
Python and Ruby won’t be good for real RAD until they get a decent development environment. Sure, they’re great for scripts and if the performance isn’t so much of an issue, they can be good for traditional app development or prototyping, used in place of C or C++.
It’s unfortunate- most of the people who are used to doing it the hard way in those languages don’t have an interest in a good IDE. IDLE is good enough, they figure. They’re set in their ways, don’t know what they would gain with a real IDE. It is usually the people who have only read over the python tutorial, written a script or two who pollute various message boards with “d00dz use Python for RAD!!!1.” Anyone who has done a fair amount of programmign in any of the languages in this class as well as something like RB would realize that it’s not that sample. Yes, you can do prototyping in python- you can do it in any language. But RAD isn’t Python’s domain at this time. It may be someday, we can all hope. Perhaps with PythonCard?
Incidentally, Perl is closer to the RAD dream than Python. I’ve found the Prima toolkit ( http://www.prima.eu.org/ ) to embody the feel of a tool like RB pretty well. It is lacking features that would make it a complete RAD environment- like a general code browser (as opposed to just the code that is a part of your GUI and its callbacks). And for those without real experience using a RAD, a RAD isn’t just a GUI builder with a menu item that lets you run the app you’re working on… there is a level of intuitiveness, completeness and a definate feel there. Glade is not RAD. It is a GUI builder. RB is a RAD that has a GUI builder.
I still like FutureBasic^3 more. You get access to the entire (Carbon) Mactool box like you do with C, only its much quicker to write apps with.
Visual Basic is Microsofts secret weapon. You will be supprised how many database frontend applications are written in VB. You can write a database front end in 1/10th the time you could write it in C. Apple should really push this! It is a great way to port database front ends. Many IT departments could support MACs if they get the Database tools matured. This is WHAT keeps MACS out of IT departments. Most of the old programmers don’t want to learn new tricks. It is hard enough to get them off of COBOL!
$0.02
Man, you don’t come accross that too often. personally, I think Python/Ruby are much better than Perl in so many areas, especially when it comes to application development.
I take that stupid post down. Time to sleep, rajan.
In spite of its name, the REALbasic language is fully object-oriented. It’s OOP features include:
* everything inherits from Object (single inheritance)
* interfaces
* exceptions
* operator overloading
* dynamic arrays and dictionaries
* strong type checking with RTTI
* streams for file and socket IO
As you can see, a Java developer will be very much at home in REALbasic. There are no line numbers… this is not your father’s BASIC.
Unlike Java, however, REALbasic compiles COMPLETELY NATIVE applications for Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9, Mac OS X, Windows 95, Windows, NT, Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
Applications are deployed as single-file executables… no external DLLs on Windows.
Why not take REALbasic 5 for a test drive and decide for yourself?
http://www.realbasic.com/download/index.html
Matt Quagliana
Director of Sales
REAL Software
>> The only thing we need to worry about now is having a big company buying RealBasic and destroying their product…
REALBasic does the same with other products!
REALBasic inherited William Yu and killed his excellent and free product RapidQ in October 2000.
REALBasic didn’t allow to release the sources of RapidQ to the user community – as a result RapidQ is dead.
>> Why not take REALbasic 5 for a test drive and decide for yourself?
Because you don’t have a version for people that program for fun or freeware! (…without selling her product)
Your demo version is rediculous – works only 5 minutes at a time and this only for 30 days!!!
Try to program some relevant stuff in 5 minutes to decide if you buy it…
I was actually pretty confused when reading this. I expected it to have something to do with the much more famous Real ( http://www.real.com ).
Which of them was first? This actually seems like a worthy trademark lawsuit.
Matt, how do you respond to me?
How much does it cost to develop a program in RB?
No, REALbasic has nothing to do with the crappy media player. I don’t see why there would be much of a trademark lawsuit claim- yeah, they both have the word “real” in them. However, they share no common domain whatsoever- people aren’t going to get confused, looking to download realplayer and finding REALbasic.
Maybe the first company with “soft” or “software” should go after all the others…
Maybe whoever used the word “real” in their company name should just sue all the rest, no matter the product offered? Only in America!
How much does it cost to develop a program in RB?
What do you mean? RB Standard costs $99. Or are you curious about some other factor? Development time?
I think people here are missing the point. The only thing this program shares with the old BASIC language is some of the syntax. Personally, I wish that they’d instead chosen a JavaScript-like syntax the way Macromedia did with ActionScript. Syntax aside, however, RealBasic as an IDE is just awesome. And it’s one of the few tools that makes cross-platform development so gloriously simple. It really is rapid application development, and has a surprising about of power and a vibrant user community. Its place in the market is for developers who want to go quickly from idea to execution with little fuss and little sacrifice. And I have to commend them on how well they’ve done with the program and it’s documentation. Worth the price.
Has anyone compared this to MS Visual basic? MS Visual Basic is very expensive, MICRO$OFT ONLY, and buggy as a termite hill! VB does not give you a true executable. With Real Basic there is no PCode runtime junk, and *.dll hell!
There is NO other way to write a database front end with very little code that is completely cross plateform. I don’t know why people are so hung up on the language. What comes out the other side is what is important! Download the demo and compile something!!!! Thats right, it compiles just like mom used to make.
I was actually pretty confused when reading this. I expected it to have something to do with the much more famous Real ( http://www.real.com ).
Which of them was first? This actually seems like a worthy trademark lawsuit.
That’s funny, I first thought of RealSoft ( http://www.realsoft.fi/ ). And Real3D certainly came before RealAudio.
I have used RB4 and VB6. RB4’s compiling and checking was nitpicking and extremely terse. VB6 is a bit kinder. There’s nothing wrong with BASIC for application development, but there’s much better out there.
>REALBASIC is used as more than a prototyper. Maybe thats about all Python/Ruby is good for
A bit more than that:
http://www.python.org/psa/Users.html
http://www.python-in-business.org/success
for just some examples. Note the LLNL (Lawrence Livermore National Labs) where it is doing some *serious* work on climate research (Google for “PCMDI”) and NASA. Python is beginning to take over the scientific area very strongly, and is way beyond just being “prototyping”.
Python is also suitable for RAD – bear in mind that RAD does not necessarily involve Visual designers like those with Delphi, Kylix, VB or REALBasic. It simply means pushing an application out fast, which due to Pythons clear and easy to maintain syntax is quite easy.
>> There is NO other way to write a database front end with very little code that is completely cross plateform.
completely cross plateform?
mac and Windows… but where is Linux? …BSD?
Well there is PureBasic… it works with FASM
GUI-apps, Database, 2D… (3D not 100% finished yet) no problem @ all
Works on Amiga, Windows, Linux and is a bunch cheaper than REALbasic!
The best thing is: all updates are FREE!!!