b4a - Simply Amazed

Hi, Early days, but I am extremely impressed with b4a - it worked. I downloaded the software, followed the beginning tutorial, and after 1 hour had something working without one single hiccup. First time that has happened.

Essentially, I am not a fan of Eclipse or Java. Maybe it's just me being lazy, but I find it annoying. For one, all these directories to look through. b4a no doubt hides a lot of that. Java - very verbose and to my mind OLD. b4a has old issues no doubt, but I haven't thus far (early days) noticed them as a major negative.

Sorry to bore the anointed, but am I just putting-off the inevitable. Will I have to resort to eclipse for Android development? Eg. No Grid in b4a, but do I really need it? Perhaps another component will do. All I want it for is display. Perhaps the another component will do that job.

What about reporting? My thoughts are to use pdf. Can I easily do that?

Although I have purchased b4a, the cost compared to time is negligible. I don't want to spend a lot of my resources (time) and find that I need to go the Eclipse route anyway.

What is new for b4a on the horizon?

Is b4a powerful enough for serious Android apps?

Any (polite) comments appreciated.

Regards, Brian: sign0098:

Welcome to B4A!!!

Allow me to give you my opinion and experience about this product and also answer some of your questions.

Indeed, B4A saves a lot of time designing and writing code, I haven't touched Java in a long time, when decided to start writing apps for Android I found it kind of difficult and time consuming to refresh my Java skills and getting used to Eclipse and all that jive, so, I started researching and after trying several candidates B4A always came on top, I have to say, it's money well spent.

You've mentioned reports and PDF, well, there are libraries which exhance and expand the functionality of B4A, to answer your question, there's a PDF library available, as you get more familiar with the forums and B4A you will realize that you can find lots of info and sample code by searching the forums, of course, you will also soon find out that this is a very strong, friendly and knowledgable community so feel free to post your questions.

What is new for B4A on the horizon? you ask, well, B4A is still young but evolving and maturing quicky becoming more robust after each new release and, regarding B4A being powerful enough to create serious apps, well, take a look at some samples HERE or HERE just to give you a little taste of what can be accomplished using B4A.

I hope I've been polite enough for you.

brianoh said:

Although I have purchased b4a, the cost compared to time is negligible. I don't want to spend a lot of my resources (time) and find that I need to go the Eclipse route anyway.

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Even if you do go the Eclipse route (which I doubt), you will find that your purchase of B4A was money well spent.
You may want to write or wrap some additional libraries in Java to extend B4A's capabilities, but then you will come back and use them in B4A which is much faster, friendlier and easier.

B4A is no doubt the fastest RAD tool out there. I've played with a few (for both Android and iOS) and as far as difficulty and time investment B4A won hands down. B4A is still in its infancy, but can be used to make some serious apps. There are several downsides though. In my eyes (and in no particular order) they are:
- Not the best choice for a serious game programmer
- It's not developed by a team. (unless I missed something, I believe B4A is pretty much a one-man show. Erel is awesome, but this just means updates and improvements come at a slower pace.
- Some minor difficulties with layouts sometimes, but v1.9 (which is to be released soon) looks very promising. This is an issue with Android in general.

It's not developed by a team. (unless I missed something, I believe B4A is pretty much a one-man show. Erel is awesome, but this just means updates and improvements come at a slower pace.

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There are several others who help me behind the scenes.
New versions with major new features are released about every 3 months. New libraries are released more often. I don't think that other development tools evolve faster.

Erel said:

There are several others who help me behind the scenes.
New versions with major new features are released about every 3 months. New libraries are released more often. I don't think that other development tools evolve faster.

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I agree with Erel. Also, his organisational structure has the advantage to move fast and make quick decisions (as Google has the knack of doing).

JonPM said:

- Not the best choice for a serious game programmer

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you can make interesting games

http://www.b4x.com/forum/additional...bphysicsengine-library-v0-10-a.html#post57925

And what defines a serious game programmer?
when a 14 year old kid knocks angry birds out of 1st place

Eighth grader knocks Angry Birds out of the top free spot on the App Store | VentureBeat

Regarding support for games I would also like to add:
http://www.b4x.com/forum/basic4android-share-your-creations/14879-flatank.html
http://www.b4x.com/forum/basic4android-share-your-creations/15935-hangman-ml-multilingual.html
http://www.b4x.com/forum/test-my-app/15196-opengl-game.html

Although we might need a generic game library, for people who know what they are doing, it should not be harder to develop games on B4A compared to Eclipse.

Erel said:

There are several others who help me behind the scenes.
New versions with major new features are released about every 3 months. New libraries are released more often. I don't think that other development tools evolve faster.

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That's great. I hadn't seen any of the other b4a devs on the forum (or maybe im just not aware of who they are). I have worked with other RAD/SDKs that provide daily/weekly builds to their users, with frequent major releases as well. This is what I was referring to.


@vb1992 - I have played this game in the past, and it is a neat little game. IMHO I wouldn't call this a "serious" game though. I'm talking about more graphic and code intensive games (NFS, modern combat, sims, backstab, etc).
And regarding the library that is exactly the point I was getting at. Developing a game isn't easy and takes quite of bit of work and resources. Personally, I wouldn't start on one with B4A until there were more official libraries released (openGL, physics, etc). Using a user-provided beta library can really come back to bite you later. I use unofficial libraries all the time and they usually work great, but I would love to see more of the official ones myself.

@thedesolatesoul - I have played these games and they are pretty neat. Not exactly advertising material for B4A however.
Never said you couldn't make games with B4A, just said I didn't think it would be the best choice

I have worked with other RAD/SDKs that provide daily/weekly builds to their users, with frequent major releases as well

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I don't think that releasing new versions on a daily or weekly basis is a good thing.

JonPM:

...Personally, I wouldn't start on one with B4A until there were more official libraries released

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I'm not a "game" developer but I STRONGLY agree that more OFFICIAL libraries are needed for many reasons, but the most important one is SUPPORT, there are great user-developed libs but you cannot rely 100% on them when it comes to support, if the maker decides not to make any improvements, or never comes back to the forum again you are left with an incomplete or buggy lib. Maybe I'm a little off topic here but I think this should be addressed to keep B4A in a reliable and consistent state, by the way, I truly appreciate the efforts of those who write the libs and appreciate even more the ones who maintain them and keep providing enhancements.

Like I said in my previous post, B4A is still young, and so far, I like what I see.

NJDude said:

I'm not a "game" developer but I STRONGLY agree that more OFFICIAL libraries are needed for many reasons, but the most important one is SUPPORT, there are great user-developed libs but you cannot rely 100% on them when it comes to support, if the maker decides not to make any improvements, or never comes back to the forum again you are left with an incomplete or buggy lib. Maybe I'm a little off topic here but I think this should be addressed to keep B4A in a reliable and consistent state, by the way, I truly appreciate the efforts of those who write the libs and appreciate even more the ones who maintain them and keep providing enhancements.

Like I said in my previous post, B4A is still young, and so far, I like what I see.

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+1

Sent from my DROIDX

I've been thinking recently about whether library developers should have an option to release/'open source' their library code...

We'd need an official SVN server so only registered users could take part.

Then if a library developer decided to release their library source code they could do so.
Others could then fork their own versions with whatever updates and new features they want.

It would allow users to build a custom version of a library with whatever features they require for a particular application.
New features could be committed to the original source.

There's lots of posts on the forum from users that want to start writing their own libraries but just cannot find enough detailed information on the processes involved.
If they had access to the SVN server (maybe read-only access) then they would have:

1) A chance to look at other library writer's source code to see how others have made a library.

2) A chance to download a working library source code and immediately start to learn and write Java for a library.
They'd not have to start with a 'Hello World' type of library which although it teaches the basics, it lacks anything to keep the newbie library developer interested.

A lot of requests to add new features to a library are pretty straightforward updates, if the library source code was available then anyone could make requested updates.
That'd free the original library writer of the ongoing commitment to provide support for their library.

And of course if a library writer loses interest in B4A and no longer visits the forum, their source code would still be available for others to continue development of.

The more people that work on a library, the more bug-free and feature packed that library would become.
The library may even become good enough for Erel to consider incorporating into the official B4A libraries...

Martin.

+1
Good suggestion!

Good post Martin.

However I do not completely see the point in learning from existing libraries. It is easily possible to view library code, but without propper comments or documentation it is impossible to understand, especially when it involves a hierarchy of classes.
Of course, I speak only for myself, as many others are capable of learning from that route.
I prefer to have more examples especially on how things like layouts and events are dealt with. These are the things B4A encapsulates. I do not however feel entitled to it as this is Erel's decision on how he wants the library community to develop.

I also feel the need to address and clarify the use of decompilers and code re-use. Right now this is the only way to learn, but is a grey area. Sometimes in sheer enthusiasm developers copy library code sensing encouragement even from the actual library developers. I am sure a lot of people are using modified libraries, but do we want to encourage sharing, but control the distribution of code?
I say this only because many developers would like to be asked before their code is used, but they arent really bothered when you ask them.
Maybe creating a SVN repo is the way to go, but there is the risk of polluting the library with substandard code.


Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

I do not however feel entitled to it as this is Erel's decision on how he wants the library community to develop.

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I think that any developer who wants to start an open source library should go ahead and do it.

There are many good open source repositories. It is better to use an existing one instead of installing and maintaining one here.

Erel said:

There are many good open source repositories. It is better to use an existing one instead of installing and maintaining one here.

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I was under the impression that you wanted access to all library stuff to be restricted to registered members only...?

Martin.

This is true. The best solution is to upload the final XML and jar files to the forum.