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

[Carl Nilsson]

G'day Rob:
I concede to your greater knowledge and experience.   Just a couple 
of points in response:
Firstly, I chose my words "a wave of the future" carefully.  I did 
not say "the wave ..."  Hopefully the future holds many good waves.
Secondly, I was simply following the thread, which may or may not be 
correct, that securing the long term future for Gambas requires a 
continuing or even periodic intake of new users.  RPi's are not just 
used for education, although that was their prime intent, they are 
also useful for embedded systems and, in particular, hobbyists.  That 
segment is still quite large.  I guess I fit in that category - a 
cheapskate with time and no great programming skills!  My particular 
point was that it seemed a missed opportunity to me that boards like 
RPi , Beaglebone and the coming Intel board did not better support 
Gambas and that it was up to the Gambas community to take up those 
and similar opportunities to ensure a Gambas future.  Certainly 
Gambas 3.2.1 compiles and runs on the RPi.
Carl
At 08:47 AM 26/01/2014, you wrote:

>Second, I would argue that the Raspberry Pi isn't "the future", cheap
>Chinese Android devices are. Gambas being ported to Android isn't going
>to happen anytime soon as despite having a Linux kernel, Android doesn't
>even have the most basic GNU libraries (or a replacement for those) that it
>would need to be POSIX compliant. Education might be moving toward ARM for
>desktops, at least in CS/CSE programs where kids are meant to be hacking,
>but the business world isn't, and that's where most of us are coming from.

...(snip)


>As a corollary, even if Gambas is available on those systems, as you say,
>Python is installed by default and the Raspberry Pi project pushes it
>pretty hard. Students sitting in front of RPis are going to get taught
>Python unless their teacher is someone like me who strongly dislikes
>Python, and I suspect Gambas isn't going to be the next thing on their
>list.
>
>Third, you can't install or update Gambas on a platform on which it doesn't
>compile and run, and if you're one of "the ones that don't have the
>necessary skills or experience to install and update Gambas on these
>platforms", I would hope you'll shell out the 50 bucks to send your pet
>hardware platform to someone who volunteers to make it work

(snip)


>Isn't there a Raspbian support group or something that has people who know
>how to read gcc error messages?
>
>Rob
>

Carl S Nilsson
137 Gordons Hill Road
Lindisfarne, Tas.
Australia 7015