[Gambas-user] A little article on Gambas on Phoronix

[Rolf-Werner Eilert]

Hi Randall and Rob,

for my own business (a privately run language school), Gambas has become 
a mission-critical tool. With the exception of the accounting office, we 
are running a Linux server with LTSP which serves not only the 50 
students' computers in two labs + some working spaces but also my own 
terminal in the head office.

Over the years, I have written a number of highly specialised tools to 
manage e.g. the students' database, their marks and printing of 
certificates etc., a classbook to be used mainly by the teachers, a 
typewriting trainings program, a calendar for my own use, applications 
for our internal and external websites and lots of smaller apps and 
scripts, all in Gambas2 and 3. So Gambas is really mission-critical for 
my business.

It's for our accounting computer that we still use an old VB5 client for 
the students' database, and for the students I made a quick-and-dirty 
typewriting app clone in VB.net. My brother-in-law still uses a VB5 
database client I once programmed for them. If there was a chance to use 
Gambas on Windows machines, I would at last get rid of those, too ;-)

Surely I've programmed in a lot of different languages and BASIC 
flavours that came along the way. I started on a Commodore PET (?), at 
least it woke my interest. The first one I owned was a ZX81, but I soon 
felt that it didn't serve a real use the way it was. Then followed some 
time with an Amiga 2000, and the first PC clones in parallel. This was 
the time when I started to code the first database for our school, 
switched to PowerBasic (a really powerful compiler BASIC), then to VB. 
After having used Linux as a standalone server for quite some time, I 
found KBasic which disappeared after a good start, then came to Gambas.

I'm not like the typical pros like you all here, I don't like maths, I 
can't grasp the abstract examples which show it all so clear for you 
guys ;-) but I'm the hands-on type of guy who just wants a little 
problem solved. BASIC (and Gambas in particular) can serve both types of 
programmers, I think. Sure, I can read C and C++ code, Perl scripts, 
JavaScript, PHP and stuff. But they're not my kind of tools.

Regards
Rolf


Am 27.11.2013 23:19, schrieb Randall Morgan:
> Well as does happen though-time, language changes. The terms used over time
> tend to take on different meanings giving the society in which they are
> used. One of the reasons communications can be so difficult....
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 27, 2013 at 1:19 PM, Rob Kudla
> <sourceforge-raindog2 at ...94...>wrote:
>
>> On 11/27/2013 03:18 PM, Randall Morgan wrote:
>>> When I think of mission critical, I think of things that could cost
>>> someone's life if failure occurred. Things like, aircraft guidance
>> systems,
>>> embedded medical devices, automotive steering and breaking systems, rail
>>> switching systems, etc.
>>
>> Those are actually a separate class, usually called "life-critical". A lot
>> of proprietary software packages have EULAs that actually forbid their use
>> in such applications. And while I don't know about Gambas, I've been aware
>> of a frightening number of medical software packages with at least a VB
>> interface, including my late partner's ICD's control software, complete
>> with VBRUN600.dll (pretty sure the software in the ICD itself wasn't VB,
>> but in non-implanted devices it might be -- and in any case, I'm betting it
>> wasn't ADA).
>>
>>> You can argue that almost any software is mission
>>> critical for it's mission.
>>
>> Nope, "mission-critical software" is a term of art that means "software
>> critical to the operation of a business". For Amazon, a web server is
>> mission-critical, as is whatever they use to handle fulfillment so quickly.
>> For banks, there's the core system, teller interface and whatever other
>> ancillary systems without which they can't open for business, written in
>> languages that range from RPG to Javascript. For a recording studio, it's
>> something like Protools or Ardour, especially once enough projects are in a
>> given tool's format that switching would require days or weeks of work. And
>> for Benoit's company, it's the software he wrote in Gambas.
>>
>> I once worked for a company whose most mission-critical software was a
>> Lotus spreadsheet macro that they had overgrown, causing the data to
>> overwrite the "code". Yes, really. They were dead in the water without it,
>> sent everyone home, couldn't so much as access their customer list or open
>> orders. I fixed it for them in a few days, converted it to a DBMS with a
>> nice Turbo Pascal client, but it just goes to show that mission-critical
>> software depends on what the business needs, not what's stable, secure or
>> even sane.
>>
>> (No Z80 machines in my past except a Colecovision, but I had at least 5
>> 6502-based ones... still really enjoy that flavor of assembly language,
>> especially with modern macro assemblers.)
>>
>> Rob
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Rapidly troubleshoot problems before they affect your business. Most IT
>> organizations don't have a clear picture of how application performance
>> affects their revenue. With AppDynamics, you get 100% visibility into your
>> Java,.NET, & PHP application. Start your 15-day FREE TRIAL of AppDynamics
>> Pro!
>> http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=84349351&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk
>> _______________________________________________
>> Gambas-user mailing list
>> Gambas-user at lists.sourceforge.net
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gambas-user
>>
>
>
>