REAL Software Forums

Yesterday I had a heavy discussion with some fellow coders.

Although I mainly code in Xcode I am a big fan of RB because it's quite a fast RAD for developing small apps. I prefer to use RB for fast tryouts before I continue coding within Xcode.
Asking my friends why they do not want to use RB gives following thoughts:

- RB is 'lame'. It's 'Basic' period! If you explain it's more then just the old fashioned Basic language we all grew up with they have to acknowledge it's not bad after all.
- For Windows it does not create one .exe (like Delphi does - the strength of Delphi I guess and surely the reason it became so popular with beginner and pro coders)
- RB is not optimized because it is intended for three different os versions.

The conclusion of the whole discussion we got was:

- RealBasic is commercially a totally wrong name. If it was called RealCode, RealRAD, RealObjectB, ... (dropping the 'Basic' word) it will be 100% more used/accepted. People tend to dislike everything connected with the old Basic language.
And I have to agree here. RealBasic sounds a bit ... hmm ... not professional.
- Windows: One .exe (like it used to be in previous versions) is a MUST for serious developers I guess. I know this has been discussed in the past and it seems it was inevitable to not doing this but it's a fact it will keep many coders away from RB because of this.


Some things to think about when RB wants to be more popular these days. I mean, this forum has -5000users. So I am guessing there are less then 5000 paying RB coders around. That's ... well ... peanuts and in fact pathetic. (knowing Delphi has more then 1million users).

Making RB more popular will need some new strategic moves from RealSoftware I guess.

Sad, but true.
This is even prevalent in .NET land.

Using Visual Studio, you can easily code in Basic or C#
The underlying libraries are the same, and I imagine the resulting binaries arent that different either.
(Didnt one of the Guys from Borland defect to help Microsoft do what Delphi was doing with mix'n'match libraries?)

But a .NET app using VB.Net still gets the cold shoulder from C# -ophiles
(Especially when I can code the same app in half the time using it)

True, many people won't know or care what you used to develop an application, as long as it works.
But many others do.

I love RealBasic, but it would save me a lot of defensive explanations if it was called something like

Object CrossDev by Real Software

If that's the reason then perhaps the person giving that opinion is not mature or doesn't have much of a personality. It might be 'basic' but if it does what I want to and allows me to code faster, what's the problem? Who do I need to impress and how do I need to impress others? By being able to deliver a good app in time or by bragging how complex the language I used to create the app that I delivered 2 months late is?

Hector

Hector, the question is not whom you need to impress, but whom RealSoftware should impress in order to gain more users and wider acceptability among professional programmers. The original poster asked programmers why they don't want to use RB, not end users why they don't want a program made in RB.

I think it is logical to believe that if the product had a bigger following, then RealSoftware would have more revenue and thus resources to spend on making the software better.

Then again, it might be possible that the name "RealBasic" appeals to hobbyists and that is whom RealSoftware is trying to attract.

I'd be interested why this is considered a must. Apart from the ease of distribution of a single-file application, I cannot see any benefit. In fact most of today's applications consist of multiple files.

Not only that, according to RS this is a must for the future on Vista. Trying to store everything in a single exe WILL cause problems as they explained it to us.

Well, many (and I mean M A N Y !!!) users and programmers links this problem with interpreter languages. Meaning it's slow and not-done (do I have to mention .net with it's large framework?

"today's applications consist of multiple files" ???? This is partly true for big programs but for a small app (RB is most geared for making small apps quickly imo) I need one simple file.

Again people ... the reason why Delphi was (and still is) very popular is because it creates a single .exe without the need of .dll files. Seriously.

Maybe it's not important for you but a simple program needing an external .dll file to be distributed doesn't feels right to me.

That's just plain bull imo. Look at Delphi ... no problems there.

This is conjecture on your part. Not everyone who uses REALbasic uses the forums, there is a very active mailing list, and one isn't compelled to register to read the forums either. Real Software has stated in multiple press releases that they have over 100,000 licenses sold, but they don't release exact sales figures.

The rest I'll just leave alone because it has all been debated ad nauseum over the years.

REALbasic is not an interpreted language. REALbasic applications are fully compiled applications.

If activity of forums is a guide to userbase then RB is at least as big as Delphi.
Surfing Delphi links is a depressing combination od moribund webpages, 404s and domain-sitters.

Yes I know. But basically if I didn't look deeper into it I would presume that it was a interpreter languages because it needs extra .dll framework to run.

Hmm... 5000 forum users and 100,000 paying users? What do you think? Honestly...

I think I have more important things to worry about.

about.com/delphi alone has more then 500.000 users
Project Jedi (free components lib) has more the 800.000 downloads for the latest version (april 2009)
I guess Delphi is more popular for Windows development then RB.