[openbeos] Re: our own language
- From: "Mark Berry" <mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <openbeos@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 13 Jan 2002 09:46:31 -0000
> My thought is what if we developed a VB like
> language for openbeos, people could write apps
> a lot faster, new people to the os would find it easy
> to code in, and i think that we would get a lot more
> apps to the os, which would in return encourage
> people to stick with the os.
Doing something like a Visual Basic type system would be a lot of work.
Arguably a bigger project than oBeOS itsellf.
I would suggest something more in the lines of PROMOTING the use of Python
for non-C++ programmers, and let me explain.
1) We can bind the native C++ libraries right into the system. Thats
right, you can access and use the C++ libs in the OOP style that they where
designed to be used in. That means that you get the performance of those
base libraries as well. The BeOS API is relatively simple and very clean to
impliment for a understanding level. This will give give hobbiest and
non-C++ programmers a chance to easily learn the Be API without having to
mess with the details or relative complications of C++.
2) IDE's for python already exist and can easily be ported.
3) Python itself is VERY portable and can easily be ported to Be.
4) This project is in scope of the capability of the group (IMHO), a visual
basic solution is not.
Something like this could be focused on after the first release and we have
some sort of working api to work with. Though there are tools such as SWIG
to help porting C++ libs to Python, I imagine that the first phase of the
system will be in very rapid development. The only thing I can think of
that would argue my last point, it would be nice to have a prototyping
language to 'whip up' quick and dirty programs to do things like
cd-installer, disk manager, etc etc. There are A LOT of utilities, etc that
are going to have to be written. C++ is a lot of work and is quite
commiting. Being able to prototype smaller applications before commiting
them to the C++ heads could be a good way to muster more support from the
non-hardcore programming community as well.
Anyway, my .02.
Cheers
.mark
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