B4J Question Future of B4J

Blueforcer

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We plan to implement a very large project with B4J. We know that it is feasible. But since it is a software that has to be maintained over several years, the question is to what extent B4J is future-proof. What happens if something happens (God forbid) to Erel? Is it still an oneman show or are there employees now who can take B4X further?
 

Sandman

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No, I simply recalled what a different company did years ago.

Aha, so you took a completely unrelated company, in a somewhat related situation, and made a very large leap of faith that their situation would in some way reflect what would happen here also. That's a pretty large leap. Especially considering that your example surely is in an exceptionally small minority of what happens in that kind of situation.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not enjoying this thread even a little bit. But the fact is that I'm investing lots of hours and effort into Anywhere Softwares tools. I'm glad that you have a situation where you'll have ”time to move to a different development platform if the need arises”. That doesn't really reflect my situation. If B4X goes up into smoke and I'm supposed to change development tool within a year or so, I'm totally screwed.

I would be so very happy if there was an official statement outlining the contingency plan. Heck, even a one-liner would be good enough for me. For instance:

- If I for some reason is unable to continue the work with B4X, I have arranged for a software company to continue the work for at least three years.

or

- If I for some reason is unable to continue the work with B4X, I have arranged that all source code will be given the MIT open source license and available online.

(Note that these are just my examples, on top of my mind)


That said, I have 100 percent understanding that this topic is one of the least inspiring to work at. I'm in the exact same boat myself, and I am so very happy that my customers haven't started to ask me this question yet. I could perhaps give them some vague idea of what the plan could be, but I haven't really worked anything out yet so I wouldn't be able to give a straight answer. (I'll focus on that right away, after I'm done with the 1000 todos that are super high priority right now... :-/)
 
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Daestrum

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I find this thread quite strange.

If I had paid for the software , then I would like some sort of contingency plan for its continuation, but as B4J is free, why not just enjoy it while it is available.
 
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LucaMs

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I admit I did not read the thread, only the last post.

Perhaps one of the reasons why B4X does not have the success it deserves lies in the fact that here everything seems to be realized by one person, not by a team of at least 50 people.

You have the impression that Anywhere Software is actually a single person; if this person ends up in hospital for a year or dies (all possible spells are allowed ), what happens to b4x?
 
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D

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Nobody can guarantee you that a development environment can exist forever.
This has already happened with other development environments.

Should be synonymous with B4x, then you have to look for a different development environment and as best as possible rewrite his programs.
Many of us already do it with B4a and B4i, I even did it with B4a and Windows Phone (Visual Studio 2013).

By the way, who can give a guarantee to our customers that their own apps are always updated?

I almost forgot. I even converted programs from Basic4ppc and Psion to B4a.
 
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Sandman

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I find this thread quite strange.

If I had paid for the software , then I would like some sort of contingency plan for its continuation, but as B4J is free, why not just enjoy it while it is available.

I think the thread has broadened from B4J to B4X.
 
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amykonio

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My opinion is you get what you pay for...
And B4J is a great example that you can get a lot without paying a penny.
You have a very stable tool. And great support.

Of course business continuity is important. But can it be requested by a free tool?
I don't know.
I find the conversation a little macabre.
As Erel mentioned, there are to many examples of software that were abandoned.
Some Examples, from tools I was working with: Sybase EAS, Sybase Datawidnow.NET, PocketBuilder, Watcom C++ (actually this one was open sourced, and died after that). So even donating a software to the public doesn't assure you about it's future.

So Erel (and anyone in his place) could assure you that something will not happen... As other big companies do... But what is really the value, I don't know...
Also, B4J (as other B4X tools) relies to other technologies. What would happen if, example: javafx wasn't available after some years? Or jetty...

Also there are lot of abandoned applications that still work...

So I'm not sure what we can really achieve with this discussion...

Andreas.
 
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MarkusR

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has Erel Kids and teach them software developing? if not we should send him our women. he he.
 
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Dabzy1978

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Nothing lasts forever, it just doesnt... When using dev tools like B4X or others, the end will inevitably come eventually, not nice to see, but I've used two game dev BASICS and one community has completely disappeared in the most part, the other is hanging on in there, but alas... All roads really point to oblivion.

The first one was a language I used since 2001, some may know it here, and that was BlitzBasic, it was great, it had a thriving community, source code and documentation was second to none, and it's price was really competitive. The Blitz brand was created by Mark Sibley, really clever egg too... There was many versions of BlitzBasic, you have the original one, then Blitz3D, then BlitzPlus and finally, BlitzMax. BlitzMax was the pinnacle of the brand, and it was everything I wanted with the language.

Though, when it came to the game dev side of things, it was dated, and running on DirectX7, there was no real improvement in this regards, users pleaded for an update, someone made a driver so it ran on DX9 (Which eventually got into the official distribution), but overall, there was nothing brought to the table. The problem it had in the most part is that, Blitz3D was great, it was a magic bit of kit, but, again, the DX7 engine was well out of date, and most users wanted the same setup in BlitzMax, but more access to DirectX, like shaders and what not... It never came, we got a Max3D module from Blitz Research, but that died a death, he handed over the code to the community, the people that had the know how tried to work with it, people promised they would "Look after it if it was open source", but the ones that knew, got bored, and well, buggered off, the ones that shouted the most, never had a clue really...

A lot of people moved to Unity by then, I dont like point and click programming, I'm a relic, GUI based stuff I can get away with, but for game programming, give me a text based IDE, or even Notepad, and I'm happy as pig in poo!

Eventually, the language died a death, the site closed down, prematurely, luckily someone backed up the forums and put them back online for reference, but yeah, quick as that... It was gone! Such a shame...

Anyway, he [Mark] changed tactics and created a language called Monkey, people flocked to start, but again, for me and many others, it wasnt what we wanted, he pounded it with syntax sugar, but under the hood, it was still BlitzBasic, with longer compile times, and less power as it was multi-platform as it had to adhere to the lowest spec in its target list... Which was HTML5! This went open source, plonked on GIT, but, I havent seen much of it...

Cut a long story short, Monkey got dropped and Mark returned with MonkeyX, same sorta setup really... He decided to go Patreon, but this never brought the cash in... Again, it never caught me at all... I did prick my ears up when I learnt he was exploring VR and other features, but... He dropped that pursuit, and again, started chasing bollocky syntax sugar instead... It's still going, but the last I heard he went for a full time programmer job... I think its doomed.

The next tool I used was GLBasic, not many people liked its old school syntax, but I got on with it, made a good few games for iOS, it was simple, did the job, cannot ask anymore when your planning to sell games for 79p, this eventually went the open source route as well, Gernot (Its creator) did well in support for it, the language has been around for years, but, for me, once something goes that route, I tend to drift away... Again, a shame.

And even with main stream languages, language standards change, chain tools change, libs go out of date and stop getting supported and, well, your back to square one...

It is what it is, roll with it, you cannot 100% plan for the future, so there is no point worry about it, you've just got to get on with it!

Dabz
 
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MarkusR

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and that was BlitzBasic, it was great

it went into small talk off topic.

arrrgg Mark Sibley (a idol) break my work in progress games because he started new BlitzMax language (without 3d because he said the community can make 3d^^)
also annoying he dropped BlitzMax and Monkey language and now there is Monkey2 half baked. he lost motivation at all.
GLBasic was a bad tool, incompleate and buggy, the 3d import did not work.

before visual basic 6 i used gfa basic (it died also long ago, sad)
unity engine will break your project each update^^
for unreal engine i bought extra a new pc^^
construct 2 -> 3 changed license terms to monthly fee^^ never.

apple is on the way and replace object c with swift. (after apple removed the glass look icons with a ugly one color i hate them^^)
i never used xcode at apple because it was so complicated in compare with other dev tools but i like the swift language.
it was also impossible to program with a track pad.

for windows desktop apps ms visual studio is the best but not free / expensive for companys.
i do not use it privat because a simple app have thousand files and its often not backward compatible if a new ide appear.
+ visual studio 2017 (started march 2016) was one year buggy. vs 2015 make trouble at setup i had to reinstall windows but i not want so i bypassed it.
i had a expensive vb6 license and 2003 they started .net^^ limited but vb6 can still run at windows 10 today.

NetBeans for java and windows desktop is also fine but i never used it because vb6.
Android Studio was annoying since the beginning and for a developer it is just complicated in use,
it had also break projects after update.

news about purebasic and spiderbasic are ~ one year old ... (both non OOP)

alternate for desktop pc there is only sharpdevelop and monodevelop.
 
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JackKirk

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A note on B4J being free.

Whilst its purchase price is 0 my investment in it and the accompanying B4A/I is huge - time wise.

I would quite happily pay considerably more for all these products if it resulted in them being "bus proofed".
 
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Hamied Abou Hulaikah

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hope erel is not purchasable and if it did we all will visit him and force him to break contact with microsoft ...
Personally, and at least from my own view; Erel should think about Microsoft/Oracle Sun/Google/Apple and others gaint software players for taking his B4X project big steps forwards , Actully not FREE, he should requests a lot of $$$
Erel may be comfortable now with the current situation of B4X business because it is one man company, But as other said b4x is one "bus factor" company.
 
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JackKirk

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Erel should think about Microsoft/Oracle Sun/Google/Apple
I would be a bit careful advocating a step like this.

In the late 1980's I was "head hunted" (a term I don't think existed then) as a "product requirements manager" (modern: software architect) by a company called CADAM.

Computer-graphics Augmented Design and Manufacturing - a byproduct of the Lockheed Skunkworks in California which used IBM 3250's - very high performance, for the time, graphics terminals running on IBM mainframes.

They had the big end of the CAD/CAM market sewn up - customers included just about all the major aerospace companies, lots of the really big consulting firms etc - nearly all customers of IBM who was doing the marketing.

Literally the day I walked in the door for the first time Lockheed announced they were selling the company.

There ensured a year of total internal confusion - who was going to buy us, what did this mean for our fledgling workstation products (running on IBM, Appollo, HP, ... RISC workstations) etc.

In the end IBM spent $100 million and announced it was all systems go - all workstation products would prosper blah blah...

At the time I left 2 years later no workstation products except for IBMs saw the light of day and we were in terminal decline - abetted by IBM's new focus on CATIA by Dassault Systemes (an early CADAM customer) which was 3D (we were 2 1/2 D).

Ultimately what was left of CADAM was sold to Dassault and it is now but a distant memory.

Moral: big companies don't give a fig about small customers - particularly if they have other axes to grind - Google is going to want to support and grow B4I?, Apple is going to want to support and grow B4A/B4J, ...

Unless you can find a big company without axes, my vote would be for Erel upping his prices considerably (maybe keep a hobbyist line and add a "professional" line) , staffing up and become a multi bus company. This probably means Erel would enjoy it less (managing staff is never fun) but he would have a more sustainable product.

BTW I hate the term "professional" - it sort of implies everything else is unprofessional - but I can't think of anything better.
 
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B4JExplorer

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Well, there are no guarantees about the future.

In fact, there's a chance that A.I.s will be better at our jobs, and more efficient at moving modules to another codebase when necessary.

But aside from that, relatively speaking, B4J is already outlasting Jabaco. If it's important to keep a vb-style compiler that emits Java byte code, then at least B4J is a better bet than Jabaco.

In an absolute sense, who knows how long a development environment will last?
 
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MODERN TALKING

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So we all have to support Erel, maybe with a Crowdfunding campaign for him to develop contingency plans and maybe hire a dedicated apprentice

Selling to MS is NOT an option, cause they will just acquire and shutdown

Why not CrowdEquity?

So we are all shareholders in this IRREPLACEABLE & PRECIOUS company and combine to develop counter-measures against any threats

Erel, you approve of this?

Cause once the threat is at your doorstep and you have NO GAMEPLAN - then it's too late

Preparation and planning, with proper execution, need to be initiated well in advance of worst-case scenarios

Maybe a "baby-sitter" cum bodyguard on a rotational, volunteer basis - but I cannot, cause my insane Country will not allow me to enter Israel

Remember: "The Only Constant Is CHANGE"
 
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