[Gambas-user] Gambas Future or what kind of Gambas we want.

[Kevin Fishburne]

On 11/01/2013 06:33 AM, François Gallo wrote:
> Le 01/11/2013 11:15, Fabien Bodard a écrit :
>> After long talk with many gambas developpers, after years of joy on the use
>> of this language, I want to talk about its future... its persistance.
>>
>>
>> Benoit for me is a little bit like our Linus. He have done something for
>> itself and it's today one of the better tool ever see. (Umm ... ;-))
>>
>> Now, for me one thing lock down Gambas... why can't it be more known ?
>> Because it is close to Linux world. Theire is no possibility to use it
>> natively on other system ... this problem what explicitely exposed by RMS
>> in the past in a mail sended to us. Yes in his request he wanted us to make
>> the interpreter generate a cil code for interpreter like java/.net or
>> parrot. Well today we know java isn't a sure way, and we can do things too
>> without.
>>
>> I have a request to Benoit, and i know it's time is precious and like mine
>> rare. I want him to concentrate on make it's code portable... separate
>> specific linux part to allow all our friend that want to help to port
>> gambas to stars to make theire job.
>>
>> By doing this, most people can participate on compiler/interpreter code, by
>> having Gambas on other system we can have more component maker/maintainer.
>> At the end Benoit can take hollidays and come take a Cognac at home .   :-)
>>
>> I know this is a huge job as he/we need to take the time to mark all part
>> of the code that is hard linked on Linux system, and then choose a way to
>> separate it to symplify the maintainment
>>
>> Same thing for the toolkits but it's at a first time not the subject of
>> today.
>>
>> Now we have hands that can help... but it can't be done if the code is not
>> structured for.
>>
>> So for the Undred time ... Benoit ... Please, let us helping you.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> To all, the gambas user/dev, this exchange is for you so even if it take
>> thouthen of mail, please give us your impress and your ideas, your support.
>>
>>
>>
>> Please, don't look at the spelling fault, it will take to many time to you
>>     ;-)
>>
>>
>>
> Fabien's right!
>
> i worked on gambas' portability (OS X and *BSD) and i can say
> we need a new structure of code to make a good portability
> but mainly a proper maintenance.
>
> Gambas is too linked to Linux. I can understand Benoit isn't
> interesting to spend time in the developing to port Gambas,
> but Benoit MUST review its code.
>
> At the moment, Gambas is not coded to port properly on
> others OS.
> a lot of routines is too linked to Linux (i say it again).
>
> Add new components and features is great, but it is
> preferable to focus time to make it better.
>
> i hope a work will be done in the gambas code to have
> a "modular code". Separate X11 in a single code is
> better for us, developers who wants to work on
> portability of Gambas!
>
> in this manner, each developer can works on a code
> for OS X, for Windows and so on ...
> X11 for OS X is ugly.
> X11 for Windows is ugly.
> Use translated X11 routines are ugly.
>
> Benoit, we don't ask you to port Gambas to OS X & Windows,
> just to re-structure code of Gambas so that we can works
> efficiently!
>
> While this change will not be applied,
> i would not be motivated to work on any Gambas port again...

Just to throw in my two cents... I personally despise Windows, OSX and 
iOS. Microsoft and Apple can both die in a fire as far as I'm concerned. 
That being said, from a practical standpoint I think the lack of 
portability speaks of two weaknesses (or strengths not taken advantage 
of) of GAMBAS:

1) Developers have a significantly more limited target audience. The 
best program in the world, if developed in GAMBAS, won't be used by the 
vast majority of those potentially interested in using it. That hurts 
potential end users and the developers.

2) The more people using an open source application, the more people 
contribute to maintaining, improving, documenting, and evangelizing it, 
as well as testing and reporting bugs. Hypothetically, if one million 
people use GAMBAS and it runs on 1% of computers due to OS limitation, 
porting it to the other 99% will result in the user base increasing to 
100 million. That is profound and could accelerate the development and 
stability of GAMBAS to unseen levels.

So, despite wanting to stab Microsoft and Apple in both eyes with 
daggers, in the end I think it would benefit GAMBAS and us as developers.

If it's a matter of getting all the component dependencies working in 
other OS's, couldn't build scripts be generated for all of them? You'd 
think a lot of them already have build scripts for Windows and OSX and 
it would be a matter of identifying the outliers and creating scripts 
for them. How many components actually can't currently be compiled on 
Windows/OSX? Maybe the start could just be the IDE and "default" 
components, then the other components could be tackled individually. Not 
my area of expertise. :/

-- 
Kevin Fishburne
Eight Virtues
www: http://sales.eightvirtues.com
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