On Wed, 21 Apr 1999, Michael Breashears wrote:
> Is anyone aware as to whether we can use Visual basic as a development tool
> in lieu of C++?
If you are talking about Palm devices (VB vs. C++ is more commonly asked
of WinCE devices, given the fact that Palm programs can be written in
straight C), then I can only suggest you look at Satellite Forms
<http://www.softmagic.com/sat-mx_fam.html>.
(I've no connection to the companies involved with selling or making
Satellite Forms.)
If you want real Visual Basic support for Palm devices, I'm not aware of
any options, and can't imagine Microsoft working on such a thing. VB is
highly Windows specific, in any case. I imagine the technology _is_
suitable to retargeting in this manner, but just not without help from
Microsoft, and a lot of hard effort.
You might have better luck looking at some of the other visual development
environments, like VisualAge SmallTalk, that might conceivably be
retargeted to generate code for the Palm environment.
(Why SmallTalk? Because it is an interpreted language that has been
compiled on occasion, and because a proper SmallTalk IDE is itself written
in SmallTalk, as is the SmallTalk compiler. Thus it's a good language for
bootstrapping to a different target, much like Forth. But there aren't
many Forth visual development tools.)
Of course, Apple used something resembling Self for the Newton.
I expect the simplest solution for Palm coding would be to craft something
completely from scratch, involving one of several Open Source interpreters
(developing a BASIC interpreter if a suitable one isn't already
available), and building a GUI around it using either Win32, or one of the
more portable GUI toolkits.
--
Kenneth Albanowski ([EMAIL PROTECTED], CIS: 70705,126)
