I've been thinking about trying to create some software whose designs are dancing around in my head. However, I have never been a professional software programmer nor have I had a lot of experience with programming (it's been a few years since I created a couple things with Visual Basic, and before that some PERL work, and before that...what, six or seven years ago?...some C++).
I am looking at working on something that would need some components on one platform and other components to act as clients on another platform. Tentatively I would need: 1) A language that doesn't require a huge amount of time to get up to speed on 2) A database back end that is fast and again easy to learn how to work with both for collecting data from a lot of incoming simultaneous connections and a simple way to possibly have to replicate the database 3) Ability to work extensively with sockets for text streams and file transfers 4) I'd like to have these applications be something that users can't just snap up and read, as would be the case if I used something like Python or some other language that is said to be simple to learn, powerful, and flexible, yet interpreted While pondering this idea I wondered about whether it would be worth trying to use RealBASIC to create the application(s) I thought that one of the big bonuses would be that it's cross-platform, so I could try learning RB and using it to work on multiple platforms without the hassle of trying to create a Linux daemon and learning and setting up a MySQL database, then learn another language for the clients on Windows. Before investing in a full pro version of the software, I would like to try it out, and since I'd be learning it and using it in my sparse spare time (who doesn't have that problem?) the 30 day trial would probably not be enough for me; I remembered reading about a free version for Linux, though, and part of the application suite I was thinking of trying to create coud be developed with the server components in Linux and the client implemented as test items on Linux. So some questions... 1) Does RS still offer a free standard version of RealBASIC for Linux? Where is the download if that is still true? 2) The database in RealBASIC...does the standard version come with this? Is the standard version any different from the Pro version, database-wise? Has anyone done any comparisons recently against other database servers (i.e., am I better off using RealBASIC's database or trying to interface a RealBASIC server application with a MySQL database on Linux as the back-end?) 3) If I tried it and it worked well, how difficult is it to upgrade to the Pro version? Should the standard version be wiped off the system then install pro, or will it upgrade seamlessly? (this would most likely be on an Ubuntu 7.04 system) Or has no one tried this? 4) What, if anything, does RB have in line of encryption support, preferably without resorting to plugins? I'd like to have some of the socket connections encrypted for some of the data transfers. Are there code examples and/or articles on encryption and RB? Feedback, examples, learning experiences, anything people are willing to share on these topics and experiences with RB on Linux (Ubuntu!) would be appreciated. _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> Search the archives: <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
