Add Haiku as a supported OS

[Yann64]

Haiku ( https://www.haiku-os.org) is a small and very well integrated OS which phylosophy matches well PB's one. Try it in a VM and you will be blown away by its speed.
The API is C++ with similarities to Qt.
Latest gcc/g++ are available, as well as SDL, and most (all?) requirements for PB.
The user base, although small is growing steadily so it would be nice if PB was available early as C++ is proving to be a barrier for some of their would be coders.

Maybe for next PB major version ?

[Caronte3D]

Wow! I bought BeOSPro long time ago! Nice to see the evolution

[Yann64]

Same here, old BeOS Personnal Edition user. At the time BeOS was so ahead of other operating systems!
Haiku has gone a long way in modernizing BeOS.

With the C back-en now available for PB, and Qt being available on Haiku, using the Linux Qt PB as a base could make porting PB to Haiku relatively easy?

[Caronte3D]

...using the Linux Qt PB as a base could make porting PB to Haiku relatively easy?

I don't think so also, support a new platform in PB is an extra work with few benefits because very low number of users in that SO

[fsw]

I had BeOS PE as well, loved it!
Remember the floppy disk that had everything on it?

BeOS almost became the new OS for Macs...
Apple needed a new OS and was looking at BeOS but the CEO of Be wanted too much money (according to Apple).
So Apple spent even more money and not only got NeXT OS but also a new CEO (Steve Jobs).
The rest is history.

Haiku is really a labor of love

[Yann64]

I do! I discovered BeOS with this floppy disk (I think I got it buying a magazine).

A few weeks later I bought another magazine, this time with the Personal Edition CD. You could install BeOS directly from within Windows 95/98 if I remember well. Having started computing at the Atari/Amiga computers time, BeOS gave me so many good vibes. It was so ahead of other OS at the time in term of speed, multi-taking and multimedia capabilities.

[Rinzwind]

Haiku uses a (by a quick look of it, nice) C++ framework for their OS API. PB does not play nicely with a C++ based API. It would need C bindings for everything which messes up the nice Haiku object model. Or something like dynamic object calling. Think CocoaMessage (that one sends ObjectiveC messages to objects): ugly and most times hopefully hidden in your PB helper functions. I guess it is possible, but I do not see it happening since Haiku has no marketshare and purely interesting for alternative OS lovers. Still, go check Haiku out

[Cyllceaux]

Long time ago (early 2005) I used Zeta OS (which was in unofficial clone of BeOS)
I loved that OS, cause it was damn small and amazing fast.

I never changed to Haiku, cause there where no programming language I liked to use for it.

[Rinzwind]

Long time ago (early 2005) I used Zeta OS (which was in unofficial clone of BeOS)
I loved that OS, cause it was damn small and amazing fast.

I never changed to Haiku, cause there where no programming language I liked to use for it.

Which apparently used modified original BeOS source code without the required permissions. At least that's the little I found after a quick search.

[Joris]

Was BeOs not completely programmed in assembler ? Haiky turns out to be more of a C language, doesn't it?

[Yann64]

Haiku uses a (by a quick look of it, nice) C++ framework for their OS API. PB does not play nicely with a C++ based API. It would need C bindings for everything which messes up the nice Haiku object model. Or something like dynamic object calling. Think CocoaMessage (that one sends ObjectiveC messages to objects): ugly and most times hopefully hidden in your PB helper functions. I guess it is possible, but I do not see it happening since Haiku has no marketshare and purely interesting for alternative OS lovers. Still, go check Haiku out

Yes, that is all true. That being said, I was thinking of using a Haiku Qt backend as a low difficulty initial porting effort (and it wouldn't be that much different from the Linux Qt backend?) as indeed the C++ native API will be a challenge to support.

There have been several Haiku users complaining about Haiku being "C++ only" for now when it comes to GUI programming, and the lack of a simple language to create GUI applications (there id yab basic, but it is an interpreter, not a compiler).
Although the community is not (yet?) big, that would be a good way for Purebasic to fill that gap (event if it is only Qt backend for now as its Haiku theme make it almost undiscernable from the native theme).

[Yann64]

Was BeOs not completely programmed in assembler ? Haiky turns out to be more of a C language, doesn't it?

Only the kernel is C and assembly. All the API is C++, a well designed one but very object oriented making interfacing with C languages difficult