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>Could please someone from the Commercial Aisle comment on this? Which part
>is the biggest hindrance: the language, the framework, lack of "goodies",
>look-and-feel, or the documentation?
* Language is a hindrance if you have to deal with C-afficionados or Basic-guys who believe they’re programmers.
* Framework is a hindrance AS LONG AS WE DO NOT HAVE THE BENEFIT OF MULTIPLE PLATFORMS
* Look-and-Feel is a hindrance, because you have to dive into a completely new world to learn it. People get a document shock even before they understand how easy BB is.
* Documentation is a hindrance, and a big one at that.
* Lack of tons of OpenSource-Libraries is a hindrance, because you have to do things from scratch that can be downloaded from the web for other languages. This can partly change the moment we have JVM or .NET as a platform. Integration of DLLs is possible, but you need to know a lot about windows and the DLL does in order to not crash (dangling pointers etc.)
* Number of programmers using it is a hindrance. The number of programmers using a language gives newbies the feeling that there is a community to support them, it is a good language (that’s why it is used by many others), and that oneself becomes a more important part of the programming community by having moved from a noobie language (basic) to a “higher” language (C++).
* Lack of books in book stores about solving problems in BB is a hindrance (Just walk into a store and look around for STRUTS f.i., which is a JAVA framework). Then look for something similar about BB.
* Lack of ready-made interfaces to existing non-BB DLLs.
>> Component Pascal integrated into VS, especially if it were a 'free'
>> Express version, would give much more exposure to the language as well
>> as being a viable programming environment for serious programming..
>
>I am looking at how one of my "super-tech" collaborators is joggling
>VB, VCC, vendor-supplied DLLs, and Active-X controls. He is "dragging-and-
>dropping" all that stuff around under some sort of Visual Studio.
>I think this is what most users/developers expect: drag, drop,
>right-click, generate some sort of a GUI or help file, and all of that
>"automagically".
This is what businesses are now pushing. It’s their view on “component oriented development”. Even on OS390 my employer, software house of Austria’s market leading bank, now works with a CASE tool producing COBOL code. They have the same tool also for producing Java-Code.
Yet, I do think that while we should abstain from this folly, more non-intrusive editor-help while typing source code would be a very good thing. I’m not talking about compiler error messages while you type, but about information on a sidebar about the module/variable/procedure etc. where the cursor currently rests.
>I also noticed the guy is neither studying the project files nor
>the documentation. As soon as dragged-and-dropped something, he
>immediately hits "Run". If a compile error pops up, he corrects
>what he thinks was a problem (not always this was *the* problem) and
>hits "Run" again. As soon as the compilation is done, he tries to
>run.
>If a run-time error pops up, he immediately fires up the runtime
>debugger and looks at the variables in the closest vicinity
>>of the exception.
>I am not sure if he ever read the entire program he was working on.
>As soon as he grabs what looks like a string, he starts pulling
>that particular string.
Typical for a VB guy. OTOH, I do think that we would not desecrate the purity of BB if we had a runtime debugger. It is a really helpful tool.
>I suspect this is how many programmers work these days. BB, on the
>other hand, emphasizes the structure, the need to read and understand,
>and so on. It does not fare well with my guy. I never convinced him
>to try BB, even though we were working on the same project and he was
>supposed to help me. But he insisted on using VB, not BB.
As I said: Typical. But yet, a runtime-debugger is much more than a “goodie”.
>I think we should try to understand what is the biggest hurdle and try to
>address the hurdle. However, it is easy to pick the wrong one. So we
>should think before doing. What are the suggestions of the Commercial
>Wing? How to decrease the "opportunity costs" such that your
>programmers would consider it worthwile to learn BB rather than run away from it?
One of the things I’m asked very often is: „How many enterprises use BB for their stuff? Tell me of one software package on the market that is written in BB. What about projects?” If everyone of us who had done a piece of commercial software or software used in a professional environment would write 2 to 5 pages in PDF or simple HTML about every single one of his projects, why he decided to use BB, the benefits etc., and publish this on the ‘net, linked to other pages doing the same, if we had a page about BB and the future development of it, if we used some resources (=time/manpower) to push those sites in the search engines, enhanced the number of subsystems by porting as much of the Oberon and modula modules available, then I do believe that we would raise our numbers (and thereby decrease opportunity cost) in no time. And I don’t think this should be done in a “project” way of doing it, but we could try it in a “bazaar”-style. (
http://tinyurl.com/3ald3)
Rene
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Received on Tue May 23 2006 - 12:55:34 UTC