posted January 05, 2007 06:15 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Mike Stefanik:
And, as we've discussed, if you want some flavor of Linux to eclipse Windows,

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Maybe eclipsing isn't necessary. All enterprises have life cycles. Personally I would prefer to have the choice, rather than become part of M$'s gut flora.

posted January 05, 2007 06:33 PM            

quote:

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I hope PB will rise to the challenge. It is not too late since Freebasic is still very much in beta phase.

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PB has nothing to worry about. FB is fine, but you can't create a business class application with it and expect it to compile for multiple platforms. It simply doesn't work that way. While the command set is nice, FB has a lot more to do to even come close to the quality of PB and quite frankly, I just don't see that ever happening with an open source product.

posted January 05, 2007 06:34 PM            

I've got Linux on 2 machines. One version is Linspire, the other is
Mandriva. They both look very friendly and easy to use. But you have
to throw away your USB broadband modem and get an ethernet ADSL hub.
They are much less troublesome anyway. And I found that while
Linspire has all you need for office use, it has a trimmed down
version of the Linux Kernel, missing some of the libraries you
need for compiling. There are almost certainly more wrinkles to smooth
out so you may need to sacrifice a little more of your allotted lifespan
Chris, if you go for Linux

posted January 05, 2007 06:42 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Charles Pegge:
There are almost certainly more wrinkles to smooth
out so you may need to sacrifice a little more of your allotted lifespan
Chris, if you go for Linux

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For the application in question there is no need, unless the price of dumb terminals comes down below $100.
I rather like FreeBSD but can't get the beard right.

I think Joe is probably right about FreeBASIC's chances. I'm attracted to PB's longevity and apparent commercial robustness, but am a relative newcomer to it.

posted January 05, 2007 06:55 PM            

While I can't vouch for the stability of Freebasic, I see that it
is evolving very rapidly and is destined to assimilate all the good
features of c++ without compromising the benefits of Basic. The
potential is there. So far I've just looked at their COM example
of a browser. The coding seemed very good.

posted January 05, 2007 07:31 PM            

Don't get me wrong, FreeBasic is a fine example of decent compiler with lots of potential. However, that's a long way off from a product like PB with proven stability and robustness. PB dates back some 15-20 years and I can vouch for Bob Z. and co's talent, ability, and dedication.

When I hear about FB being "multi-platform" though, I can't help but snicker a bit. There is a very small subset of commands one can use if they want a single compile to run on Windows and Linux. If it were possible to write a cross-platform compiler like that, I can assure you a commercial venture would already have one on the market and probably be selling very well.

If you look at the options for Basic on Linux, the pickin's are pretty slim right now. Yea, there are some good options, but nothing like PB on Windows. But I predict (unlike some others ) that this will change over the next decade. I honestly believe the O/S will become immaterial and as the market expands, so will the development for that market.

Heck, some of the Web based applications I've seen are nothing short of amazing. If web technology continues to improve at the pace it is, or faster, I could build a case for a time when nobody actually installs software locally any longer, you simply 'pay-as-you-go'. This certainly isn't a new concept, but until the improvements in some of the AJAX technologies, it was difficult to see how a web application could ever surpass a local one for speed, features, and robustness. However, I am beginning to see how that might just be accomplished. If it does, then there will be no need for Windows at all. MS will have to focus on being just an application developer, and/or a development tool business. Either way, they certainly won't look anything like they do today IMO.

But as Mike said, we can come back here in 2017 and see who's predictions were closer

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posted January 05, 2007 07:40 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Joe Byrne:
..If web technology continues to improve at the pace it is, or faster, I could build a case for a time when nobody actually installs software locally any longer, you simply 'pay-as-you-go'. This certainly isn't a new concept, but until the improvements in some of the AJAX technologies, it was difficult to see how a web application could ever surpass a local one for speed, features, and robustness. However, I am beginning to see how that might just be accomplished. If it does, then there will be no need for Windows at all.

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I sincerely hope that you are right. All this preoccupation with OSs and boxen is from the dinosaur age of IT. What is needed is robust standards that allow the developer to expose the platform as little as possible.

posted January 05, 2007 07:57 PM            

Bye!

------------------
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posted January 05, 2007 08:10 PM            

quote:

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For what is worth, my TrID file identifier was ported to FreeBASIC in a couple of days around september, and the source compile without modifications on both Win32 and Linux.
For command line utilities - and that off course include CGI - FB it's really that portable.

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posted January 05, 2007 09:00 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Joe Byrne:
But try to do the same with any real line-of-business application and you'll see very quickly how ultimately difficult it is.

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IMHO the only real arguments against FreeBASIC may be maturity / stability, for obvious reasons.
And I'm not to saying that's a "minor thing".

BTW, FreeBASIC is self-hosting, so it's compiled from a FreeBASIC source; that pose as a nice real world complex application.

Bye!

------------------
Try Online TrID file identifier! Recognize over 2.300 filetypes and counting...
Give a powerfull scriptable Lua interface to your application with PowerBLua
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posted January 06, 2007 01:36 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Joe Byrne:
But try to do the same with any real line-of-business application and you'll see very quickly how ultimately difficult it is.

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A huge percentage of "real line-of-business" applications these
days are written in Java on the server side, and will run with
zero changes on Windows, Linux, Solaris, etc. If they require a UI,
it's generally HTML + Javascript, which are just as OS-agnostic.

posted January 06, 2007 02:03 AM            

quote:

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A huge percentage of "real line-of-business" applications these days are written in Java on the server side,

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In any case, if it works for you, great, but nothing is the be-all and end-all. I still find PB does best what I need. If you find something that works better for you, so be it, no big deal.

posted January 06, 2007 05:53 AM            

I've been using PB since Turbobasic began, and it has amply met
all my needs. But recently I have encountered complexity problems
when coding 3d multimedia stuff, and the need to provide additional
encapsulation becomes very obvious. C++ constructs, (not just oop),
help to make the code better organised and easier to follow.

Furthermore If PB had C++ constructs then it would allow rapid porting
of C++ and Java open source into high performance applications.
The power of the Basic function set and memory management abilities
coupled with c++ flexibility. This is my dream for PB. But it would
need to be able to unhitch itself from M$ windows at some point.

posted January 06, 2007 06:54 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Joe Byrne:
Really? I'd love to see some statistics for that. Perhaps its just my line of work, but I can count the number of "server sided" anything line-of-business apps on a single hand...and still have 3 fingers left over.

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eBay is "real line-of-business" enough?

Bye!

------------------
Try Online TrID file identifier! Recognize over 2.300 filetypes and counting...
Give a powerfull scriptable Lua interface to your application with PowerBLua
Leakout - Firewall outbound control tester - BitmapRip Extract/recover bitmaps from any file!