[Gambas-user] (no subject)

Tue Mar 20 12:12:25 CET 2012

Pretty cool story actually!
I hope you make some profit this year!

But, the underlying techniques you're using (postgrsql) works perfectly
under Windows.
GTK (the frontend that gambas can use) works perfectly under Windows.

I'm not a Windows user, but wouldn't it be great if you could sell your
product to Windows users?
Without porting your code? Because, if the interpreter is ported, your code
would stay the same, the interpreter knows what to do with it on the
Windows platform.

Cheers

2012/3/20 Bruce Bruen <bbruen at ...2308...>

> On Tue, 2012-03-20 at 10:03 +0100, Mathias Maes wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Gambas is great, but there is one small thing why it isn't widly used. No
> > cross-platform.
> > Well, I know only a little bit of the inner workings of Gambas, but:
> >
> > I've been looking to a lot of event-driven Basic dialects, and the best
> > one, that was most widely useable: RealBasic.
> > Why? Just because it one-click compiles to Windows/Mac/Linux. Altough,
> > porting everything to Windows/Mac is not realistic and not desirable.
> >
> > This is just my opinion, so any comments are most welcome. A short list:
>
> I suppose that there exists, somewhere, in some uncharted galaxy,
> lifeforms that would like to see their Linux applications  work on other
> operating systems.  Me, nyah.  I'm more interested in converting other
> operating system sufferers into Linux users and ultimately advocates.
>
> Let me explain a bit of background.  I started seriously using Linux
> whenever it was that XP2 SP3 came out, after having used Windows since
> 3.0 (yes!).  Until that (XP2.SP3) disaster was released I had been a
> true believer that Microsoft would continue to improve and enhance what
> appeared to be a reasonable platform for developing and deploying small
> business and "bespoke" software applications.  By bespoke, I mean very
> niche, very specific applications that suited a small customer audience.
>
> I did some, what I consider to be "nice" applications using MSAccess and
> VBA that until about 6 years ago netted me a liveable income.
> When .net, asp, php, MSSQL server came out I tried porting the bases of
> those applications. BLUH! All I ended up with was a need to employ
> JUNIOR programmers to try to fix all the problems that arise from such a
> wide, mismanaged, buggy and IMO useless set of platforms.
>
> (Aside. These were not insignificant pieces of software, they include
> apps that extract and match patient details from government pathology
> databases and present the data for statistical analysis, apps that
> review and correlate mining information from aerial surveys, and a few
> others.  The point being, they were complex and of very little use to a
> wide audience.)
>
> Around about 4 years ago I met a man who had a very, very specific
> problem.  There was no software available on commercial platforms that
> could solve it .. in the manner that he wanted.  He was a trainer of
> thoroughbred race horses and just "wanted a program" that would let him
> manage his horses training schedules, trials, race entries etc etc
> etc^99.
>
> In other words, he knew "exzactly" what he wanted and "exzactly" what he
> didn't want.  He had been fighting to run a business for ten years,
> paying a large amount of money to a bunch of spreadsheet pirates and
> never getting that "exzactly".
>
> At that time I knew exactly zero about the horse racing industry.  (I
> reckon I now know about 2% of it :-;  ) Also, co-incidentally I had just
> discovered Gambas 2, which looked (from my point  view) like where VBA
> should have gone in the first place.  So, I said (heroically as usual
> when faced by a challenge), "How about I come down and see what (those
> exzactlies are ... and see if I can come up with "a answer".
>
> Short cut to end of story.  We, (private company with 4 employees) now
> have 36 customers. All 36 are using Linux to run their training regimes.
> This year, 2011-12 we are basically breaking even, and even hope ... X
> fingers .. to make a little profit.  (Benoit, you'll be the second to
> know!).
>
> A few technical details:
> Base gambas deployment - gambas 2 (stability - around 97% (a few
> outstanding gb2 "features" still exist, but mainly we have workarounds)
> Code size - approx 23,000 lines. GASP! Relax, this includes comments,
> design notes, "TODO's" etc. There is, at a guess maybe 7-8 thousand
> executable lines, of code.
> Underlying database - postgresql. Do not even think of attempting to
> suggest something different starting with "M".
> The database is both segmented and distributed. Each trainer can see
> their own data, but no-one elses. Each trainer has their own copy of
> their own data. The central database exists mainly as a backup for the
> trainers local db. It currently has over 14,000,000 rows.  We do provide
> some views into the central db regarding "public" data like scheduling
> for trials.  This includes my biggest nightmare regarding timezones, as
> some trainers reside in one state (timezone) and trial in another.
>
> Current projects:
> 1) Move EVERYTHING to gb3!
> 1.1) Move all clients to gb3
>
> 2) About 29 gazillion requested enhancements. Only one has priority, we
> currently use nightmare code to parse trackwork details.  Let me
> explain. The trackwork manager has an Android pad (I will not support
> any other product!) At the moment all they can do is email in the
> mornings trackwork data. It has to be in a specific format and THEY have
> to make sure it is formatted correctly.  Now it would be kind of nice if
> they had, say, something like a webpage to enter the details into ...
> hmmm, haven't I heard talk about that somewhere around here?
>
> Do I want to take on the 2012 goal of porting this to Windows/Mac?
>
>
> At the moment
>
>
>
>
>
> probably not.
>
>
> > -Porting the Gambas IDE to Windows/Mac is pointless. Why?
> > In general, Windows developers don't care about Linux users, we just
> don't
> > have enough buying potentional. (Mac development is on the rise, because
> > Mac is just more and more mainstream).
> > Even if they want to, those languages just already excist for a long
> time,
> > there is no reason why those few developers would switch.
> >
> > -Gambas is interpreted, so just porting the interpreter would do the job?
> > Now a little question to Benoït, how long would it take to port the
> > interpreter to Win (and/or Mac), if you make an estimated guess.
> >
> > If we all support a small donation, maybe we could hire a freelancer, who
> > ports the interpreter.
> >
> > Any comments?
> > Thank you for reading
> >
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