Other It's time to grow

Erel · Jan 22, 2020

I’m very proud in the continuing progress of B4X tools. I’m also very proud to be part of this amazing developers community.

In the last couple of years, I have a growing feeling that B4X tools do not realize their potential. While there are all kinds of development tools, B4X offers a unique set of features: simple, powerful, mature, great community, RAD, native, cross platform and more.
B4X tools are an excellent choice for a wide range of real-world use cases.

So, the question is how to make B4X more popular? Obviously, it is not a simple nor a short-term task.
A clear growth barrier is the fact that unlike most development tools today, B4A and B4i are not free. This wasn’t the case 10 years ago.

The big announcement today is that B4A will become free in a few weeks. The framework - set of internal libraries, will be open sourced.

We will accept contributions for B4A like currently done with B4J.
We've also secured funds from a US investor who shares my vision of making B4X a popular development tool. These resources will allow us to further expand.

How can you help?

Help us spread the word about B4X.

LucaMs · Feb 7, 2020

Alessandro71 said:
we already have master videos: the excellent "Erel teaches programming" series: just add multiple languages audio track

Yes, I know and right today I wanted to know how many views they got (on Youtube) and, unfortunately, not so much.
Precisely for this reason I came up with this "strange" idea:

LucaMs said:
uhm... just a my (as usual) mad and unuseful idea (even because often I write when I am almost sleeping ?)

If a member of each language (I mean english, italian, french... not B4X, Java, C #... ?) published a video on Youtube in which he quickly developed two apps, of medium and high level, obviously speaking in his own language and this video had a very captivating name and could be shown in the first pages of Google Search, such as: "The best way to develop apps, but also the fastest"?

The two apps could be the same for all the developers; if so, we should be sure to not violate Youtube rules.

Stupid idea? What do you think?

Toley · Feb 7, 2020

B4A being free is an excellent news for existing users, but I don't think it will really make the product "grow". It will surely be atractive to hobbyist and individual programmers, but professionnals and universities have already chosen their development platform (which is obviously not B4A) and they will not change anytime soon. I really enjoy B4X and have a lot of respect for Erel but I don't expect to see a lot of new serious android programmers around here.

alwaysbusy · Feb 7, 2020

Having B4A for free is 'a-nice-to-have'. The most important part in the annoucement is having a private US investor. This has the potential to make Anywhere Software grow and it gives Erel the opportunity to surround himself with professional people who know how to market the tools.

Toky Olivier · Feb 8, 2020

Informations in Wikipedia need to be updated as well: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic4android

geminw · Feb 10, 2020

Thank you very much Erel !!! It is great news! I am a teacher and I have been using it for several years, now I will be able to disseminate b4a at the National University of Mar del Plata, Argentina.

Muchas gracias Erel!!!. Es una gran noticia!!. Soy docente y hace varios años que lo utilizo, ahora voy a poder divulgar b4a en la Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata, Argentina.

Erel · Feb 10, 2020

geminw said:
now I will be able to disseminate b4a at the National University of Mar del Plata, Argentina.

That's great! You are more than welcome to share your insights, experience or material with the other tutors: https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/?‍?-?‍?-b4x-in-the-classroom-share-your-experience.113800

Nkalampika · Feb 17, 2020

How to become a B4x representative in my country?

junglejet · Feb 17, 2020

2 comments (which may have been made upstairs):
- Basic as a language is used by professionals as a no go argument. You blame yourself if you use Basic. This is the perception. Whenever I mentioned I use B4A for apps I was told this is not professional, period. Basic is for kids. Actually it was for kids, as kids use Java today. To overcome this perception despite alle good arguments pro the B4A Basic dialect will be very tough. Perception and blame are most important leaders of mankind.
- Support through the forum only is not sufficient. Professionals require instant support and are willing to pay. This imho is the biggest barrier. A support organization quickly becomes big and expensive and revenues are lousy. Look around how Linux solved the support problem. By distributions and associated services people can make money. Money can only be made from corporate customers, but it needs a broader concept (brand franchising, certified partners etc.) To get this run it will need qualified people, and a lot, and upfront invest not too small.

Erel · Feb 17, 2020

junglejet said:
Basic as a language is used by professionals as a no go argument. You blame yourself if you use Basic. This is the perception. Whenever I mentioned I use B4A for apps I was told this is not professional, period. Basic is for kids. Actually it was for kids, as kids use Java today. To overcome this perception despite alle good arguments pro the B4A Basic dialect will be very tough. Perception and blame are most important leaders of mankind.

B4X is not really Basic, in a similar way that VB .Net is not really Basic (and B4X is also very different than VB .Net).
I also see that you are a member since 2009 so I'm not sure that it is just for kids
Anyway, there is no point in arguing about it. I'm of course familiar with Basic reputation and this is one of the reasons that Basic4android became B4A and the programming language is named B4X.

Innovating, growing and removing barriers are difficult things to do and there are always many reasons and many people who are there to tell you why it will not work. If you believe in it then the only thing that you can do is to don't listen them and continue...

Nkalampika said:
How to become a B4x representative in my country?

Now this is the correct approach.
Nothing formal is needed. Any help with spreading B4X will be appreciated. Contact support@basic4ppc.com if you need any assistance.

sorex · Feb 17, 2020

junglejet said:
Basic is for kids. Actually it was for kids

I don't know where you got that from but it's totally wrong.

it was invented for those who didn't want to write programs in 100% assembler and it's just a human readable/understandible way of programming
which is the same as any languaguage that is not assembler.

a lot of professional programs where written in basic back then (70s & 80s) and if required you mixed it with assembler parts for speed reasons.

in case of the .NET platform it doesn't matter if you write in VB or C# as it will compile to nearly the exact same .NET thing.

I think a lot of these 'PROs' still think that everything basic related is slow and is using GOTOs. It advanced over the years aswell.

Look at freeBASIC it's BASIC so it's bad? well, it does a straight optimized convertion to C and you can even add your inline assembler routines.
in the end the exe is just as fast as if you wrote it in C. The end result counts, not?

udg · Feb 17, 2020

IMHO the PRO label should be reserved to us, the programmers, not to any of the programming languages (you know, there exist hundreds of them) we use.

Let's compare a simple syntax from four main languages:

B4X:

if (a > 5) then
' a is greater than 5
else
'a is less than or equal to 5
end if

if (a > 5) then begin
{  a is greater than 5 }
end else begin
{  a is less than or equal to 5 }
end;

if ( a > 5 ) {
  // a is greater than 5
}
else {
  // a is less than or equal to 5
}

if ( a > 5) then
    !    a is greater than 5
    else
     !   a is less than or equal to 5
    end if

Simple question: Which one is PRO and which is not?

LucaMs · Feb 17, 2020

udg said:
Simple question: Which one is PRO and which is not?

Maybe PRO are only those languages that have little things like Delegates, Lambda, etc.
Like the very professionals Java, C#, Visual Basic Net, ...

LucaMs · Feb 17, 2020

Anyway, VB (and B4X) is too simple, it is for children; yet I'm going crazy with a piece of code.

I'm probably 3 years old again ?

tsgiannis · Feb 17, 2020

udg said:
Simple question: Which one is PRO and which is not?

PRO is what gets the job done....i am also kind of perfectionist..but in the end the client pays and the client at first wants a solution that works and is ready yesterday.

junglejet · Feb 17, 2020

Erel said:
B4X is not really Basic, in a similar way that VB .Net is not really Basic (and B4X is also very different than VB .Net).
I also see that you are a member since 2009 so I'm not sure that it is just for kids
Anyway, there is no point in arguing about it. I'm of course familiar with Basic reputation and this is one of the reasons that Basic4android became B4A and the programming language is named B4X.

I am 61 and I am just sharing the perceptions of 40 or so years IT work and constantly talking to young people who believe they are very smart and hip. Not more than that. You can see that all these super ultra smart people jump onto 2 or 3 new languages a year, most of them you will never here of again. Basic was originally developed as an interpreter, compared to the compilers like Fortran and Cobol at the time. About the same perception is true for Python, although it is not justified at all. But these people create opinons.

Yes, I admit I learned Fortran and ran programs with punched cards. Subroutines were stacks of punched cards that we exchanged, and hopefully not mixed up and put into the right place of stack.

junglejet · Feb 17, 2020

sorex said:
I don't know where you got that from but it's totally wrong.

it was invented for those who didn't want to write programs in 100% assembler and it's just a human readable/understandible way of programming
which is the same as any languaguage that is not assembler.

a lot of professional programs where written in basic back then (70s & 80s) and if required you mixed it with assembler parts for speed reasons.

in case of the .NET platform it doesn't matter if you write in VB or C# as it will compile to nearly the exact same .NET thing.

I think a lot of these 'PROs' still think that everything basic related is slow and is using GOTOs. It advanced over the years aswell.

Look at freeBASIC it's BASIC so it's bad? well, it does a straight optimized convertion to C and you can even add your inline assembler routines.
in the end the exe is just as fast as if you wrote it in C. The end result counts, not?

This is the rational perception and I agree. But when you run a technology business you have to take care of your hip customers and the coolness factor. A Tesla battery car with 5 gauges and a small monitor instead of 1 big monitor is just uncool. Though I am not sure this single monitor approach is really convenient for the customer. Actually I hate it. But it is cool.

rbghongade · Feb 17, 2020

Hi,
This debate about BASIC has been going for decades! In my opinion B4X gets the job done, meets the customer specs, is highly reliable (and sweet)! There is no other framework which let's the designer start with sensor- microcontroller interface and go all the way up to user interface (multiple platforms)using almost same coding language! (Python is a near competitor but again not as elegant as B4X). This is my personal opinion and after 4 major projects , I can think about no other platform.

Winni · Feb 25, 2020

When you've observed the development and evolution of BASIC dialects over the last 40 years or so (which I have), then you will regard Python as basically (pun intended) just another BASIC dialect.

dBase/Clipper/Xbase++ also have a lot of similarities with modern BASIC dialects like (the now open-sourced) BlitzMax, for example.

There are three programming languages that managed to pay for my bills in my career:
PowerBASIC
Turbo Pascal
Xbase++

Python became a utility language for smaller tasks and for what is now called "dev ops" work.

There are other languages that I've learned, but never really used in production environments (C++, C#, Visual Basic 5, COBOL, 6502 Assembler) - I think C++, C# and even COBOL qualify as so-called "professional" languages. Strangely enough, they were never really relevant in my professional career.

So at the end of the day, it's all nonsense. Use whatever lets you get a professional job done. You don't need Makita tools if the products from Metabo let you do the same thing, but for some reason you can handle them better. Programming languages are just tools. You get paid for the result, not for using a certain tool.

All the best,
W.

LucaMs · Feb 25, 2020

Winni said:
When you've observed the development and evolution of BASIC dialects over the last 40 years or so (which I have), then you will regard Python as basically (pun intended) just another BASIC dialect.

dBase/Clipper/Xbase++ also have a lot of similarities with modern BASIC dialects like (the now open-sourced) BlitzMax, for example.

There are three programming languages that managed to pay for my bills in my career:
PowerBASIC
Turbo Pascal
Xbase++

Python became a utility language for smaller tasks and for what is now called "dev ops" work.

There are other languages that I've learned, but never really used in production environments (C++, C#, Visual Basic 5, COBOL, 6502 Assembler) - I think C++, C# and even COBOL qualify as so-called "professional" languages. Strangely enough, they were never really relevant in my professional career.

So at the end of the day, it's all nonsense. Use whatever lets you get a professional job done. You don't need Makita tools if the products from Metabo let you do the same thing, but for some reason you can handle them better. Programming languages are just tools. You get paid for the result, not for using a certain tool.

All the best,
W.

It depends on whether you are a freelancer or an employee. As an employee you must know and use the tools and languages of the company you work for (I was forced to learn and use RPGLE, unknown to many here, I suppose); as a freelancer who produces and sells your own sw, without sources, obviously you should use the language that allows you to reach your goal in the shortest time possible (you could also be a different type of freelancer and need to know the languages currently most popular).

In any case... B4X is and will be the solution

AnandGupta · Feb 25, 2020

Winni said:
Programming languages are just tools. You get paid for the result, not for using a certain tool.

Agree++.

I use different tools do develop diverse applications, from small Overlap Wallpaper to bigger Accounting Software.
But yes some clients do ask 'what software I am using to develop' and I reply C++. Period. No further question from them. They are happy, I am happy.
For Android just say Java.

Look these clients are never going to develop any application. It is just their satisfaction psychology. But they will always ask for better and faster result.
So make them happy and keep using the tools which make you happy by giving faster and better results.

Regards,

Anand

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