Howdy, I'll answer what I can. Bart Silverstrim wrote: > 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 > RB is really easy on the eyes, and the language reference is very nice. Add to that some outstanding autocomplete features and I think it fits that requirement nicely. Often I'll grab a new object that seems like it'll do what I want, drag it into the form editor, then on the code editing side I'll enter the name of the object, press tab, and look at what items are available inside that object. The naming is very rational, for the most part, so it's easy to learn this way. Like anything you run into oddities, but they've been pretty minimal for me. > 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 > I honestly have no idea about how well/easily/if the included SQL-lite implementation handles that sort of thing. There is an optional database server package, but I haven't really looked into it. In general I found recordsets, which are the in IDE objects used to interact with the DB, to be somewhat confusing initially. However, I do a lot of PHP work and I'm used to using that, which may be the only source of my difficulty. Also, I've only used the included DB for single user apps. > 3) Ability to work extensively with sockets for text streams and file > transfers > That's surprisingly easy in RB. Takes a little learning curve, but nothing compared to other coding environments. > 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 > Well, it does compile, so you wouldn't need to worry about anything that easy. I don't know exactly how hard reverse engineering is with it, but definitely tougher than perl or python. Plus they'd have to have RB to do much of anything about it. I do recall a discussion that indicated string data may be read from viewing the raw executable, making that approach unsuitable for storing activation keys. You might search the archives for that, or maybe someone here remembers it well enough to point you to a link. > 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? > Yeah, it's still free. Just download it from their site, it's right there with all the others. I think you still end up clicking Buy Now if you go from the main page, but it's free.
> 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? > Should be fine. > 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? > Pro, IIRC, offers an SSLsocket which should fit that particular need. Standard doesn't really offer that, unless that's changed in the last year or so. General encryption I'm not sure about. I know Standard doesn't offer anything. You can access library and platform specific encryption routines using declares though. > Feedback, examples, learning experiences, anything people are willing to > share on these topics and experiences with RB on Linux (Ubuntu!) would > be appreciated. > _______________________________________________ I run RB on XP, FC5/6, and Ubuntu 6.10. So far smooth sailing, aside from the occasional glitch. Good luck, Fargo _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> Search the archives: <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
