Should I argue with him?

I often came across when someone ask me what language/tool I use to build my mobile apps. Yesterday another guy told me about the risk of using tools like B4X vs tools backed by giants like Google or Apple. He said if tool like Flutter have 1% to continue to support in the future, B4X may be only have 0.1%. In business point of view, customer will make decision base on the risk or impact in long run. Being a technical guy, I have my own personal point of view. After a long talk with him, I found the apps he own or developed by his developers are not much appealing in term of design, usability, functionality or stability. Deep in my heart, I am confident B4X is much better in many aspects and I am comfortably familiar with it. Should I argue with him? If yes, what are the points I can win and ultimately convince him that he might be wrong? Should I keep silent and let him win since this person is my partner or may become my partner in the future?

aeric said:

this person is my partner or may become my partner in the future

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My answer was going to be "YES", bue after reading the above sentence, the answer is "NO"
You should move that sentence to the top of the thread ?

Well, Google itself was founded late 1998 so about 20yrs ago. Not that much compared to other players.
And during those 20yrs they started and abandoned a lot of projects
Anywhere Sotware was founded in 2003. Their projects are still alive and constantly improving

IMHO, partnership should be a two-way agreement on, at least, anything fundamental. You may try to prototype in B4x a twin of one of his projects to show how rapid and good your preferred tool is compared to his. Then, if you can't agree on the developing language/tool, evaluate other points of agreement/disagreement and define if that could be the right partnership for you.

If he programs too... why not a challenge like the Peter Simpons' one?

udg said:

Well, Google itself was founded late 1998 so about 20yrs ago. Not that much compared to other players.
And during those 20yrs they started and abandoned a lot of projects
Anywhere Sotware was founded in 2003. Their projects are still alive and constantly improving

IMHO, partnership should be a two-way agreement on, at least, anything fundamental. You may try to prototype in B4x a twin of one of his projects to show how rapid and good your preferred tool is compared to his. Then, if you can't agree on the developing language/tool, evaluate other points of agreement/disagreement and define if that could be the right partnership for you.

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I agree all of your points.

José J. Aguilar said:

If he programs too... why not a challenge like the Peter Simpons' one?

B4A vs. Android Studio Challenge

www.b4x.com

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He is a retired Cobol programmer.

aeric said:

In business point of view, customer will make decision base on the risk or impact in long run.

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My customers have absolutely no idea if I'm developing their bespoke solutions using B4X, C# or VB, they are just interested in the end result and what sort of support they will receive from me after they receive their application. I've been a self employed developer for many years now, and I've never ever had any bad feedback about bespoke work specifically designed for clients.

I used to develop bespoke windows applications using VB.Net (but I don't now), I then swapped over to C# for Windows applications and also B4X for Android and Desktop solutions. Android can be a bit questionable at times as out of the blue all of a sudden we all have to rush to learn something new like Runtime Permissions etc etc etc, File Provider etc etc etc, Android X etc etc etc etc etc etc, the list just goes on and it can be a complete pain.

I will admit it though, Anywhere Software does a fabulous job keeping up with Android changes and then teaching/showing us the best practices to implement those changes into our newly created Android apps. The main reason why I didn't mind paying for B4A was because of the support, and having direct access to the creator of the B4X suite of RAD tools is just priceless in my personal opinion. Support is the same reason why I use the web hosting company that I do. Only server technicians answer the phones and they can log directly into the servers to view/fix issues whilst customers are talking to them.

I personally prefer to create bespoke desktop solutions applications over Android apps for clients, I get more pleasure out of creating desktop applications, especially if I'm using B4J. I've donated to the R&D of B4J 2 or 3 times this year, and will most probably do so again in a month or two, it's worth every single penny.

@aeric the question you asked about arguing with this person is irrelevant and a complete waste of your time and energy, your energy could be put to better use like helping B4X developers with their queries on this great forum. But if you are going to speak to him about B4X, I would just say to him that from small seeds grows large plants, and if we only used products from large companies like google, then innovation would be almost non-existent. Don't forget that Google, Apple etc etc etc all started in garages (apparently). So his argument falls flat on it's face as when Google was small your friend is saying that he would NOT of used Google. Tell him to say hello to AltaVista, Hotbot, MSN, Lycos and Infoseek just to name a few.

Below is a list of businesses that Google have purchased, can you see where I'm coming from with the list below.

I personally would just ignore him, if he likes your apps then that is proof enough that B4X is going places. I've watched other Android app development packages fall to the wayside, but B4A continues to grow.

Finally:
I just hope that users of B4A, B4J and B4R are actually donating whatever they can afford, and not just sitting on their asses making money from the three free aforementioned packages and not donating to help with the R&D costs.

@aeric I would just not try to convince him of anything, just keep creating great solutions using the B4X suit of RAD tools

I'm not voting on this poll.

Peter Simpson said:

My customers have no idea if I'm developing their bespoke solutions using B4X, C# or VB, they are just interested in the end result and what sort of support they will receive from me. I've been a self employed developers for years now, and I've never ever had any bad feedback about bespoke work specifically designed for clients.

I used to develop bespoke windows applications using VB.Net (but I don't now), I then swapped over to C# for Windows applications and also B4X for Android and Desktop solutions. Android can be a bit questionable at times as out of the blue all of a sudden we all have to rush to learn something new like Runtime Permissions etc etc etc, File Provider etc etc etc, Android X etc etc etc etc etc etc, the list just goes on and it can be a complete just a pain. I will admit it though, Anywhere Software does a fabulous job keeping up with Android changes and then teaching/showing us the best practices to implement those changes into your newly created apps. That is actually the main reason why I didn't mind paying for B4A, the support and having direct access to the creator of the B4X suite of RAD tools is just priceless. Support is the same reason why I use the web hosting firm that I do, only server technicians answer their phones and they can log into the server to view/fix issues whilst talking to them.

I personally prefer to create bespoke desktop solutions apps over Android apps for clients, I get more pleasure out of creating desktop apps, especially if I'm using B4J. I've donated to the development of B4J 2 or 3 times this year, and will do again in a month or so, it's worth every single penny.

@aeric the question you asked about arguing with this person is irrelevant and a complete waste of your time and energy, you have better things to do like helping B4X developers with their queries on this great forum. But if you are going to speak to him about B4X, I would just say that small seeds eventually grows into large plants, and if we only used products from large companies like google, then innovation would be almost non-existent. Don't forget that Google, Apple etc etc etc all started in garages (apparently). So his argument falls flat on it's face as when Google was small he's saying that he would not of used them. Tell him to say hello to AltaVista, Hotbot, MSN, Lycos and Infoseek just to name a few.

Below is a list of businesses that Google have purchased, can you see where I'm coming from with the list below.

List of mergers and acquisitions by Alphabet - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I personally would just ignore him, if he likes your apps then that is proof enough that B4X is going places. I've watched other Android app development packages fall to the wayside, but B4A continues to grow.

Finally:
I just hope that users of B4A, B4J and B4R are actually donating whatever they can afford, and not just sitting on their asses making money from the three free aforementioned packages and not donating to help with the R&D costs.

Just ignore the person, I would.

I'm not voting on this poll.

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Yes, I would show him something to keep his mouth shut.

The company size doesn't always matter. No company killed more development tools / frameworks than Microsoft. Google itself is known for killing many of its products.

When Anywhere Software decided to open source part of B4x products we just gained a lot of future with the b4x language

remember all this products?

I would reason in this way (be careful: I often think very badly ?).

1 - B4X allows the development of mobile applications in a much simpler and faster way than competing tools.
2 - We can not deny (just for love ?) that a large sw house is much more likely to survive than a very small one.

So the way forward in my opinion would be to immediately use the B4X tools, which allow you to immediately get results and earnings, but at the same time maintain good knowledge of the tools offered by the big names in information technology, in order to be ready for any negative event anyway.

[I'm personally worried because I don't understand B4X's new strategy but... I'm a very very... very bad trader]

Your partner is spoiled by COBOL. Something like that will not exist in this ever changing landscape again. Look at Apple's transition from Objective-C to Swift. Go ahead and try to find Objective-C code by Apple for the past two WWDC's. Good luck. So if you want to stay relevant with Apple, you will have to change. Android/Goolge? From Java (well a subset of), to Kotlin, and, in the future, Flutter. If you want to keep up you better change. JavaScript? Really? How much has it changed? And the tools for it? So the question is not, what toolset/language can I use now that will serve me for 50+ years. The question is, can you survive change? If you use B4X now (due to it's advantages) and something happens 10 years from now to it, will you be able to adapt? If not, you're probably in the wrong profession.

aeric said:

He is a retired Cobol programmer.

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One could rest one's case right there.?

This isn't something one should be arguing with anyone about.

• The threads have run in other posting collections about the Move to FreeB4X, Peter's competition, and some other postings where comparisons with other tools RAD or otherwise have been mooted.
• Also, if pandering to the Big Guns is the matter at hand then look at the postings on these fora where member developers have complained about some NEW condition or regulation that GMA have brought into play. Have a look at the questions about how GMA monetise our work and control things (as mentioned above) that are not security related [a la browser upgrades and endless mOS updates].
• Get those out and play them back.

My guess is that anyone who is anything to do with COBOL is in / from a large organisational main/midi-frame mode and background experience A TOTALLY DIFFERENT space. So maybe this is just a reasonable bit of "leg-pulling - in the same way as the @Peter Simpson started out (and then got into a friendly competitive mode). So, it should be just about some back-slapping rib-poking fun talk. {Maybe its a genuine concern about your future incomes if something suddenly becomes unsupported - lock @Erel in a room there might be a bus looking for him out there.} So a concern about succession within the tool's support and RnD base.

Remember the thread about COBOL being a living dinosaur that mainframe based organisations are perpetually married to? So you have to think someone from a COBOL background and career thinks about things in that way - hey, this thing is Never going to go away - almost the ultimate security blanket. My guess is that COBOL will slowly die simply because of the challenges of modern, high-population, traffic demands and instant gratification speed requirements.

Can one do back-end BlockChain in COBOL?

As @José J. Aguilar is suggesting, create a challenge, but change the challenge into your partner learning B4X - switch the COBOL 'creative juices' to B4X and cruise forward to greater collaborations between you.

And, of course, create a new B4X developer . . . . Many of the forum are retired and have created new hobby-careers with B4X - that's your part of the challenge To Be Persuasive And Be Convincing enough to set the ball rolling.

If that doesn't work bury the hatchet and just don't talk about that subject again .. . . . . Works with my partner (who won't touch programming with a barge-pole. ???)

I think I can get a marriage counselling app out of this......

I have no difficulty in using a niche system like B4A - apps that I deploy should continue to work regardless of the status of the build tools.

We are, however, dependent upon the OS vendor not breaking things for us. An application I wrote in 1987 using Clarion from TopSpeed Corporation was in continuous daily use for 25 years, and long after the development platform had disappeared. Microsoft didn't break anything in a quarter of a century. The mobile world is much more fluid of course but it is settling to a point where even Google can give more attention to stability and backward compatibility (can't they?).

Whatever tools we use it is only sensible to have an alternate strategy, keeping up-to-date with trends and with our broader programming skills.

My take on this as a programmer of 22+ years, goes back to one of the other comments which relate to customer requirements and ongoing support.

However, there should be a disaster recovery plan, however we still have to remember, in the end, we are still dealing with native Java in the end.

I see this question is more on mindset. If one is bias to his belief, there is nothing I can do about it. It depends on how he open his mind to accept someone else new idea. I will meet him this afternoon and I think I will argue with him.

aeric said:

I will meet him this afternoon and I think I will argue with him.

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Bring beer and/or coffee, and bear in mind that there are valid points for both sides of the discussion. ?

aeric said:

ultimately convince him that he might be wrong?

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He's probably wondering the same about you ✌

Choosing the best development tool for a job is often not a clear black-and-white thing, but more of a weighing process.

Well the reason I willing to use B4A is rather simple!
It is near 100% leveraged against the official Android SDK's.
The whole system is built around the Android infrastructure. If it was not then I would not have adopted or considered the product. As goggles spends the big dollars that benefit flows into B4A.

We using a system highly leveraged against the Android system. As Android features or security changes then so does B4A go along for the ride.

This approach is not only critical but is the very reason why B4A still works so well. And as development and jS libraries are created by the Android community occurs then we too benefit.

This leveraged approach is the only reason why for example we get to use say JDBC to SQL server libs or all kinds of cool stuff like the camera to read barcodes.

I spent quite a few days trying out some database and other tools that let me build forms and edit data on Android. Man did they suck bad. But MOST offensive was how terrible their UI were. (such tools having roots from Windows CE was the problem).

Critical to B4A is how well the resulting apps look, feel and run like Android apps. And the reason is that they are Android apps!

So I would point out that B4A produces native Android apps based on the official Android SDK.

I would go so far as to state this is actually better than even what Visual studio and Ximeram offers. We don't even need some big 30 Meg runtime.

Right now?

It's either the Android developer tools or B4A. Anything else is not leveraged up it's wazoo like B4A is to the Android SDK That is a good thing - not a bad thing.

Regards
Albert D. Kallal
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Albert Kallal said:

I would go so far as to state this is actually better than even what Visual studio and Ximeram offers. We don't even need some big 30 Meg runtime.

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What, only 40 MB. You're being extremely generous

I met the guy, I didn’t argue with him. I just told him I could not help him with the Flutter app. However I may start doing freelance for him in C# to maintain a desktop application. The application automates the task of posting form data using Selenium Web Driver and running on Windows 10 only. I am sure I can build something similar to that with B4J which is cross platform.