Various Topics on Linux Application Development

..m

I have been programming in Visual Basic for a few years, but I have now
switched my OS to Linux (Mandrake 9.2). I don´t write commercial programs,
I just write programs to exercise my mind, but I am looking for a cross
platform substitute for VB6, and was hoping to get the opinion of others.

From looking through this newsgroup, it would seem wxWidgets or Magic C++
may be suitable. Which would be better for a new user (no experience in
C++ programming yet ie steep learning curve ahead), or is there something
else I should be looking at.

Thanks

Tim Herrmann

.... ..lm..

Tim is of the opinion:
> I have been programming in Visual Basic for a few years, but I have now
> switched my OS to Linux (Mandrake 9.2). I don´t write commercial programs,
> I just write programs to exercise my mind, but I am looking for a cross
> platform substitute for VB6, and was hoping to get the opinion of others.
>
> From looking through this newsgroup, it would seem wxWidgets or Magic C++
> may be suitable. Which would be better for a new user (no experience in
> C++ programming yet ie steep learning curve ahead), or is there something
> else I should be looking at.

I would suggest that Python might be worth a look. Cross-platform,
wxWindows support, general-purpose scripting language.

- Matt

..rl.. ..re..

Tim wrote:
> I have been programming in Visual Basic for a few years, but I have now
> switched my OS to Linux (Mandrake 9.2). I don´t write commercial programs,
> I just write programs to exercise my mind, but I am looking for a cross
> platform substitute for VB6, and was hoping to get the opinion of others.
>
> From looking through this newsgroup, it would seem wxWidgets or Magic C++
> may be suitable. Which would be better for a new user (no experience in
> C++ programming yet ie steep learning curve ahead), or is there something
> else I should be looking at.

If you think that learning C++ is worth the effort (as
a C++ programmer myself, I tend to claim that yes, it
is worth the effort), then my vote goes for wxWidgets.

But you have to learn C++ first -- I would recommend
that you start with non-GUI programs. Just use the
console-based C++ compiler that comes with most Linux
distributions (GNU gcc/g++), and learn your way around
C++ first.

If you're a quick study and already have good skills
in *programming* (as opposed to just pointing-and-
c****ing with VB's built-in tools), then I could
recommend the book "Accelerated C++" (Koenig/Moo).
It's not really my favourite, but it is possibly
the approach most suitable for your case.

For the wxWidgets part, you could check out my
introductory tutorial (written when it was called
wxWindows) to get you started with the basics:

http://www.mochima.com/misc/wxWindows.html


Have fun!

Carlos
--

..m ..chra..

In article <uOxzc.27989$sj4.10362@news-server.bigpond.net.au>, Tim wrote:
>
> I have been programming in Visual Basic for a few years, but I have now
> switched my OS to Linux (Mandrake 9.2). I don´t write commercial programs,
> I just write programs to exercise my mind, but I am looking for a cross
> platform substitute for VB6, and was hoping to get the opinion of others.
>
> From looking through this newsgroup, it would seem wxWidgets or Magic C++
> may be suitable. Which would be better for a new user (no experience in
> C++ programming yet ie steep learning curve ahead), or is there something
> else I should be looking at.

Either Java or Eiffel would probably be a good choice, ***uming you're
looking for an OO language. They're both high-level languages (e.g.,
both have garbage collection) and it's not difficult to write platform
independent applications in either language. You can find a free
Eiffel compiler at eiffel.com (probably better for GUI development than
SmartEiffel) or search for SmartEiffel. A Java DK should be easy to find
at sun.com or ibm.com or ...

--
Jim Cochrane; jtc@dimensional.com
[When responding by email, include the term non-spam in the subject line to
get through my spam filter.]

..m

Thanks for these comments-it gives me a base to start researching how I want
to get into Linux programming.

What I am really after is an IDE like VB6, that takes care of drawing the
basics (forms, dialogs, controls etc), and allows me to concentrate on
tying the program together with code. I program for fun, so I think having
to slog away coding too much could put me off (not a purist view, I know).

Java seems attractive, probably because I´ve heard of it. Is it possible to
write good, fast programs in Java?

eg One of my projects (half finished in VB6) is a graphing program for
electronic soil moisture monitoring (for irrigated horticulture). This
needs to pull data in from a logger using ASCII mode Modbus over RS232
(simple stuff), save each record to a database, then display subsets of the
data in a graph window. In VB I have been using Gigasoft´s ProEssentials
charting dll (which I found to be excellent - fast, stable and easy), and
it was a fairly simple procedure to get the basics up and running. What
are my chances of something similar that will run under Linux AND Windows??

Regards

Tim Herrmann

.... ..llgå..

Tim <not@likely.com> writes:

> Thanks for these comments-it gives me a base to start researching how I want
> to get into Linux programming.
>
> What I am really after is an IDE like VB6, that takes care of drawing the
> basics (forms, dialogs, controls etc), and allows me to concentrate on
> tying the program together with code. I program for fun, so I think having
> to slog away coding too much could put me off (not a purist view, I know).

Look at Glade or QT Designer.

> Java seems attractive, probably because I´ve heard of it. Is it possible to
> write good, fast programs in Java?

Yes, it's possible, but not trivial. Last time I wrote a somewhat
fast program in Java someone gave it the comment "perverse
optimization".

--
Måns Rullgård
mru@kth.se

..m

Måns Rullgård wrote:

> Look at Glade or QT Designer.

Um, yeah. It seems I already have QT Designer installed on my Mandrake KDE
system by default. Better have a look at it (looks great, BTW).

Thanks for your help.

Tim

..n.. ..zlevs..

Måns Rullgård <mru@kth.se> wrote:
>> Java seems attractive, probably because I´ve heard of it. Is it possible to
>> write good, fast programs in Java?

> Yes, it's possible, but not trivial. Last time I wrote a somewhat
> fast program in Java someone gave it the comment "perverse
> optimization".

Although some results could be interpreted differently: http://www.sys-con.com/story/?storyid=45250
Not that benchmarking always (or ever) means anything in the real world.

Cheers,
Ognen

..g.. ..i..

On 2004-06-16, Tim <not@likely.com> wrote:
>
> What I am really after is an IDE like VB6, that takes care of drawing the
> basics (forms, dialogs, controls etc), and allows me to concentrate on
> tying the program together with code. I program for fun, so I think having
> to slog away coding too much could put me off (not a purist view, I know).


If you're interested in C or C++, this might be of interest. This
tutorial looks at creating GTK+ UIs. The smallest and simplest UIs
are built using Glade. It contains working examples and full
explanations of what does what.

http://people.debian.org/~rleigh/gtk/ogcalc/ogcalc.pdf
http://people.debian.org/~rleigh/gtk...c-1.0.2.tar.gz

I just updated it, so it's "hot off the press"!

> Java seems attractive, probably because I´ve heard of it. Is it possible to
> write good, fast programs in Java?

"Fast" and Java don't generally go together. I've only dabbled a
little, but even the simplest interfaces (dialog with a close button)
were slow. The SunONE IDE was completely unusable on my PIII 900MHz
laptop.


Regards,
Roger

--
Roger Leigh

Printing on GNU/Linux? http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/
GPG Public Key: 0x25BFB848. Please sign and encrypt your mail.

.... ..rviain..

Roger Leigh wrote:

> On 2004-06-16, Tim <not@likely.com> wrote:
>
<snip/>
>>Java seems attractive, probably because I´ve heard of it. Is it possible to
>>write good, fast programs in Java?
>
> "Fast" and Java don't generally go together. I've only dabbled a
> little, but even the simplest interfaces (dialog with a close button)
> were slow.
People should really look the numbers and forget old mantra "Java is slow."

Take pointers (for example) from here:
http://www.idiom.com/~zilla/Computer...benchmark.html

> The SunONE IDE was completely unusable on my PIII 900MHz
> laptop.
Memory, eh? The most significant thing for Java slowness is short of
system memory.

PasiP