REALBasic.. anybody know anything about it?

[HerculesMO]

Some people want me to port my application over to a mac format via REALBasic (which I'm told is similiar to VB)..

Anybody have any information on this?

[dimava]

i dont think that you can use basic programs on macs, and basic is really diffrent from vb.


~~~Dimava~~~

[squirrelly1]

I would have to say you are wrong...

I am using RealBasic for my current project for the simple reason that it is multi-platform compliant...


the main downfall is that it doesn't have the support that VB does... there's no RBForums.com...
squirrelly1

[BramVandenbon]

Hmmm, some things should be said.

I started Visual Basic in VBA-Excel about 10 years ago. So I know the pro's and con's of VB.

Now about RealBasic. RB uses the same syntax as VB, and certain commands like the LEFT, RIGHT, MID ... are also the same. But that is the only simularity there is.

The RB-IDE sucks. RealBasic supports intellisense, but it is not as good as the one in VB.

Also the controls of RB have only half as much properties.

One of the nice things of RB is that you can bind controls to eachother and do this using the GUI by dragging lines between them.

On the other hand, RB is more Object-oriënted. But do not good too excited. Let us see HOW Object Oriented it really is:

- Classes:
Yeah RB uses classes all the time. But do not forget that was possible in VB too. RB also knows inheritance and polymorphism. I'm not sure if VB6 could do this.

- Global Modules:
Hmmm, shouldn't exist in a OO-language. But in RB it does. ... Just like in VB

- static variables:
Sorry, does not exist in RB. (Byebye singleton pattern)

- ByRef or ByVal
This is a real joke in RB. They copied these keywords from VB but gave them another meaning. The thing is: ByVal is used both for values and for references. ByRef is only used in exceptional situations where you wish to modify a referenced object. Hmmm ...

- Creating controls at runtime
Heh, same problem as VB. You need to clone.

- ActiveX
Lol, you better don't because Macintosh would not support that.

- Properties
Yeah RB has properties. NOT. It has variables but variables are called properties in RB. You can not put any kind of code behind it in RB. So if you want to keep things clean, you better make all properties private in RB. And write get/set methods. ... On the other hand in VB you do have properties.

- Events
No problem, both VB and RB have these.

- Casting
Hmmm ... imho strange syntax in RB. And you always have to put it in a new instance when casting. Inline casting is not possible. BTW: There is no option explicit in RB. You always have to declare variables. (And in VB casting does not really exist. VB uses functions to do this.)

But ofcourse the strong side of RB is that it will run on all 3 platforms: Linux,Windows,Macintosh.

Ofcourse do not compare this language with VB.NET. Ofcourse .NET is way more powerful than RB. But then again .NET isn't really as crossplatform as people say.

Enjoy !

[tbonejo]

I'd have to say your mostly right but in all honesty I've been developing some major programs with RealBasic 5.5.5 and utilizing excel like I did in VB6! Once you get by the nuances and start trying to do some real stuff, I think its pretty good. It'll run on any windows which Ive always had bad luck developing on 1 vers of win and trying to install/run on another. Theres the mailing list which is really good to get involved in and their forum:

http://realgurus.com/board/index.php

Tom