I want to pick up one of the two langauge!

[bmcalex]

Hello,

I am a VB6 programmer (I have little Delphi & Pascal experience).
I have a big database project (400+ forms, modules and 70+ reports made with Crystal Reports) and I want to redo it (or do any future projects) in a language which has a future and I did not like .NET (I am not in a hurry as VB6 still work in Windows 7 & 8 meaning I still have some time to maintain my code while practicing and exploring the new language)

I downloaded both Lazarus & PureBasic and tried both and they look OK.
I can not decide which one should I pick up (money is not an issue) so here we go (I am posting on both forums):

1- Which one is better for large projects?
2- What report designers are available for the language? and what databases the report engine is supporting?

Thanks!

[jassing]

1- Which one is better for large projects?
2- What report designers are available for the language? and what databases the report engine is supporting?

It really depends on which language you find easier to work with Pascal or PureBasic. While i used pascal for a while, it faded on me as I began to write more and more in C. There are a lot of pascal and modula type compilers out there.

Regarding PB - I have several large projects in pb -- compile times are fast (I just wish it would report more than 1 error at a time).

For reports, I use Arctic Reports very slick.
Personally, I prefer purebasic over the alternatives.

[Shield]

Given you're a VB6 programmer, VisualBasic.NET is the closest you can to write similar code like you did before.
Porting the source code will be much easier. But I guess you have your reasons for not to use .NET, so:

It really depends on your programming style and how you plan to write your application.
I don't have much experience with Pascal / Object Pascal, so I can't really evaluate how
they compare.

However I do know that those languages have support for modules (units).
If you choose Object Pascal you can set up your project in an object oriented way (since VB6 provided basic OOP support as well).
These two features add a lot to maintainability of projects. PureBasic supports neither of those natively.

As the project is fairly large as you're describing it, for me, this would be a deciding factor.
Then again PureBasic gets closer to VB6 regarding the syntax, so porting the code might be easier
with PureBasic than Pascal.

I suggest you play around with the PB demo and download Lazarus as well
to figure out which one of those suits you the most.


This answers question one. I can't answer question two because I don't really have
experience with reporting and databases, however database support is generally available
in PB (native command set).



Shield.

[deeproot]

I came from a very similar background - VB6, little bit of Delphi and some other Pascal before that. For various reasons I decided not to take the obvious route into .NET.

So I also looked at Lazarus and several Basic dialects. Lazarus is a great project and I really hope it goes forward successfully. Unfortunately when I tried converting one of my small Delphi programs I hit a number of problems, which did not bode well for porting my big VB6 product (note this was a couple of years ago).

The same little Delphi program re-wrote into PureBasic perfectly - no differences to the end user - plus it gave me an exe file half the size of the original Delphi one, and less than a fifth the one from Lazarus/FreePascal, even after removing debugging and 'stripping'. PureBasic just made sense from all angles!

My main project, re-coded from VB6, is fairly large (currently around 29,000 lines) and built around a big database. The source organisation is quite different, split into separate files rather than Forms and Modules, but works well and compiles in seconds. The was some learning curve - PureBasic is not VB, but that's fine. My Jet4/Access database has moved to SQLite, native to PureBasic, and runs very nicely. Can't comment on the other database types.

Also can't help on the reporting side as I never used Crystal Reports. The simple printing I had in VB6 was no trouble for PureBasic, just using the native commands.

[bmcalex]

Thanks everyone for your reply.

[leonhardt]

I use VB6 and Delphi and PB,VB6 is slow and old,for database apps I think Delphi is the one, but Delphi is OOP and RAD rather than PB's procedure coding manner.using delphi to develop apps is fast,it bases on components, like you should learn native functions of PB, you should learn methods and properties of components of delphi too,there are a lot of database components,some are commercial.Using delphi is easy but learning it would take a lot of time,especially you should learn the whole VCL framework before you can be a skilled delphi programmer IMO,lazuras is about the same thing,so for me PB is easier to use and quick to learn (press F1 on some function when coding ). when I have some problems, come here for answers.
So I think,if you really managed Delphi, just stay there ,delphi can do everything,it has an optimized compiler which produces larger but faster exes than PB, and less buggy,but I still use PB more because I don't have enough time to learn those huge functions,methods,properties of components and the VCL.however,if you can only use delphi to do drag and drop programming, better to use PB.
For large projects, it's said OOP languages are prefered,but if you are a skilled PB coder,no problem,M$ OS is written in C,
For me,PB is a small and flexible language,delphi/lazuras is a large framework and more professional.

[bmcalex]

Thanks everyone for your replies.

I am taking a totally different rout, I am going the C/C++ way!.

I was afraid of C/C++ although I have a basic understanding of the language but I think I will kill my fear, after some advice from here and there along with many readings about languages and seeing that C/C++ is the defacto nowadays.

I know it is a long/hard road but I will do it eventually!

Thanks again and wish you all the best.

[Shield]

Good luck.

[MachineCode]

I am going the C/C++ way!.

You're making a big mistake, and you'll be back here soon enough. You'll see.

[bmcalex]

Maybe but I will take my chances, as I said I am not in a hurry so no hurt to try!

[LuCiFeR[SD]]

C/++ ain't such a bad thing to learn, for sure, but it certainly is not my language of choice. All languages have their pro's and cons.

As long as you find programming is still fun, then there is no problem

Good luck with your noble quest for Knowledge.

[Danilo]

You're making a big mistake, and you'll be back here soon enough. You'll see.

The C++ language has more features than PB. If he is able to learn and master it (same way he would need to learn PB first), why should he come back for sure?

The big difference for the starter is, PureBasic core language is very small (faster to learn), and PB includes some libraries for faster start-up.
All this libraries and some thousand more are available for C++ too... they just don't come bundled with all C++ compilers and IDE's. You have to search and download/license them separately,
or write it yourself if you enjoy that more (if time is money, you usually license 3rd party components/libraries to cut down your own development time and reduce costs at the end).

For learning the C++ core language, you may need 5 times more time, because there are 5 times more features and other concepts to learn (template metaprogramming, OO programming).
Learning the same features that PB has only (variable declaration and initialization, program flow control (if, while, repeat, functions, ..)), shouldn't require more time with a good book at hand,
plus interest, curiosity and some motivation of course.

Beside the library bundle thing, he can choose between many (optimizing) compilers, wonderful libraries and engines, fantastic IDE's, and he has a very powerful language at hand,
available on many, many platforms. Everything in the price range 'all free' to '$10,000' - whatever he wants.
Maybe he will buy C++ Builder, if he already has experience with Delphi from the same company.

Last but not least, after mastering one language of the C-language-family, it is usually very easy to pick up another
language of this family in no-time, for example Java and C#. Could be an advantage for him, on the market for software developers.

Just look at Fred and freak - they make PureBasic possible by using C/C++ to write the compiler and libraries!

Enjoy, bmcalex!

[Shield]

Good points. I also started having a look at C++ after using PB (well after I reached its limits).
I didn't stay with C++ though but I got stuck in the C family (C# mostly, a little Java).

[bmcalex]

Thanks Danilo that was very enlightening!

I downloaded Codeblocks IDE/Mingw compiler and it looks great and promising!

I wrote my first 'Hello world' and I shocked/couldn't believe when it ran from the first try without any warning or compiler errors although I tried it before with MSVC++ v6 and I got a ton of errors (it was a reason back then not to get near C++)

I am happy!

Thanks everyone.