Is HMG "For the Programmer by the Programmer"?

[Rathinagiri]

I wrote the same program in XBase++ and HMG, needed some days and 200 kB code in XBase++, but only 1 day and 20 kB code in HMG.

Rightly said.

[swapan]

Thanks Sudip for this thread.

Please allow me also to say a few words.....and excuse me if its deviate from the main objective of this thread:

The day when I first read about HMG by Robert Lopez, the Sir at:

http://harbourminigui.googlepages.com/

I got excited to discover that THIS MAN is saying what I believe. I wanted this kind of a "solution" only to achieve my migration from Clipper to Windows. Those words of Robert Sir ,somehow did magic on me - and I started to believe that HMG can be good tool and I should give it a try. At that time I was exploring xHarbour (was very new in that platform also), Sudip also insisted me to just give it a try, with his help I finally had my hands on HMG.
And I must say I did the right choice. I also had a brief stay with miniGUI, which is also good but somehow feel they use to do too much customization and frequent changes. Regular Modifications are welcome but a development tool should be steady first and frequent and too much customization with respect to the wishlist of the users may make the tool prone to bugs and make it clumsy.

Programming in HMG can be easy for a Clipper programmer with the help of this forum. He/she should just give it a sincere try and voice his feedback & issues in this forum. And if this switch over (dos to windows) is his/her necessity to survive then HMG can do wonders for him/her.

-VE ASPECT OF HMG (atleast in Indian context):
But yes in the general modern programming domain people are not much aware of HMG rather any xBase tools. Its attracts people when they are told its "Open Source" - as Open Source has a craze and respect from the IT community. Usually the management looks for - what will happen in future? If the programmer/software company doing their project in HMG, it may become very dificult for them to find another HMG developer in future other then the present one. For them the "alternative choice" becomes less if they opt for HMG and may had to continue with the same HMG developer - sometimes which may not be possible.


Sory folks, I thought to say a few words....but I got overwhelmed and wrote a lenghty post.
Thanks for bearing with me.............


With regards,

Swapan

[sudip]

Hello Swapan,

Thanks for your open talk (IMHO, open source software software lovers must have "open talk" ).

Right now I am truly exhausted with writing a one-to-many sale entry form using HMG + SQLite!!! This post serves as a break and source of new oxygen to my gray cells

IMHO, if someone wants to revive his/her old Clipper app "only", there may other ways also without using HMG. And if someone wants to write a fresh, efficient, robust app, HMG will be a very good choice.

Regarding psychology of using xBase of our "knowledgeable" ( ) clients, you may try with SQLite. I am now thinking about some function which will store query results to temporary tables (DBF ) automatically!!! In my humble experience, our clients actually heard some inflated horror stories about DBF data corruption, mainly due to indexes. If they are complaining about security of DBF, please keep handy 2 small demo apps with HMG using ENCODE and DECODE commands... one using encrypted .dbf file and other using ordinary .dbf file with encrypted data

Tell your clients (your Boss is also your client ) about HMG, not xBase or Clipper. Tell them about Mingw compiler (most of the clients don't know Mingw, then tell them about C, C++). Sometimes we have to behave like marketing professionals for betterment of the clients also You may also say

Do you prefer a very fast, robust app, created with C than those ... which need some extra setup frequently? And you know how hard to write a C program (today most of the computer users heard about C language and some of them also know it's not very easy to write a good C program )

After telling so many things about marketing, I want to confess, I am running a very small software firm with 3 employees. I have an excellent thinker working in my company, yes that's me I have a good programmer with much imagination and less output, that's also me and I have very bad sales manager working in my company, sorry to say that that's also me

Thank you all for reading upto this (I am now going to my work with Refreshed() mind )

With best regards.

Sudip

[Rathinagiri]

Thanks for thoughtful reply Sudip.

I am so happy that you are an one man army like you mentioned about Arnold!

The advantage we have over other proprietary and so called visual software is the program maintenance. We don't need (m)any run time libraries/junk.

Here, we can share some new concept with the community and we get as much help as we need back and we grow as the project grows. That's how various OSS (I call this as Open Source Solutions) are in the market competing commercial alternatives. Let the commercial people get big fishes. We can grab small fishes which are many in the market, who can't afford a SQL server/software and a huge hardware requirement.

IMHO, Small and Medium Enterprises (shortly SME) govern the Indian Economy. There is a lot of demand for software (especially SQL based ERP solutions). They can't afford SAP. Also, a tailor made software (like Tally) wouldn't suite their requirements. This is where we can play a vital role.

Swapan had pointed out a valid problem where in there are not much of developers available. We have to create consortia and create awareness among the public. At least we must educate our little people in our home as Alex does. They would definitely tell their friends, so that future will be in our hands one day.

And, talking commercial terms, are there anybody willing to develop software in HMG for some of my requirements? If yes, please contact me, I require to finish some 3 projects. We will work together.

[sudip]

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The advantage we have over other proprietary and so called visual software is the program maintenance. We don't need (m)any run time libraries/junk.

Absolutely correct. That's why I couldn't develop app with VFP for my clients in remote places. Harbour and xHarbour helped me to "recycle" my old Clipper apps

Here, we can share some new concept with the community and we get as much help as we need back and we grow as the project grows. That's how various OSS (I call this as Open Source Solutions) are in the market competing commercial alternatives. Let the commercial people get big fishes. We can grab small fishes which are many in the market, who can't afford a SQL server/software and a huge hardware requirement.

Yes, a few weeks ago we all are talking about commercial feasibility of OSS (initiated by Master Roberto's in depth vision)

IMHO, Small and Medium Enterprises (shortly SME) govern the Indian Economy. There is a lot of demand for software (especially SQL based ERP solutions). They can't afford SAP. Also, a tailor made software (like Tally) wouldn't suite their requirements. This is where we can play a vital role.

Again I agree with you. I lost one medium sized client who actually wanted ERP in 2005. Since then they spent lots of money for not-working ERP solution developed by one big IT Company.

With best regards.

Sudip

[Roberto Lopez]

One question is coming to my mind, and may be you already answered it many times to many persons. It came to my mind within 1st few days when I came to know about Minigui. Why HMG is semi object oriented? If it is "more" object oriented, we can use Window object, Controls object etc. Please don't be disturbed. I am asking you as a learner. (IMHO, fully object oriented language is difficult to use. Eg., Java. Writing a simple scanf() type input app requires lots of skills with Java )

I've told part of this story many times. For those already knowing, please be tolerant

I've started in xBase programming with dBase III+.

Later I've used Clipper summer'87 as a xBase compiler only (not using so much Clipper specific features).

Then I've discovered FoxPlus and I've was fascinated by its speed and the elegant/smart way that its developers extended the language. Later I've switched to FoxPro.

While Clipper (from version 5.0) was designed to be more low-level by its developers (influenced by Pascal, C, smalltalk, etc.) FoxPro evolved in a beautiful way, being high level, powerful and fast (all of these simultaneously).

At beginning on the 90's Clipper was not only more difficult than FoxPro, it was slower and less reliable too.

So, I've realized that we was victims of a false dichotomy. A development tool could be easy to use, powerful and very fast at the same time.

With the fall of FoxPro (aquired by MS) nobody sustained that idea. This situation become an obsession to me

Why semi-oop?

Because, IMHO, the xBase/FoxPro spirit is better incarnated by semi-oop in a event-driven GUI world.

We can ask the compiler and the pre-processor to do the dirty job for us. So, lets do it

A more simple/alternate answer is the following:

Visual Basic become the most popular development tool in the world at (about) its 3.0 version.

VB not allowed to created classes until version 4.

Even from version 4 most VB programmers not used classes. They simple designed its forms visually and directly used GUI objects like this:

Code: Select all

form1.button1.caption ='Click' 

Does this look familiar to you?

So, why not do a VB like tool based on xBase instead of Basic?

The VB style is (IMHO) the easiest and intuitive way to handle GUI objects in the GUI world.

I could write some hundred of more lines but I'm a little busy right now. Maybe I'll continue later

[Ricci]

After telling so many things about marketing, I want to confess, I am running a very small software firm with 3 employees. I have an excellent thinker working in my company, yes that's me I have a good programmer with much imagination and less output, that's also me and I have very bad sales manager working in my company, sorry to say that that's also me

Wow, Sudip, you have exactly the same type of company as me.

Regards ... Ricci

[sudip]

Hello Master Roberto,

Thanks a lot for your explanation. I am very sorry sorry to disturb you to tell us on the same topic . But believe me, I shall be very much eager to read your explanation many times again in future. Because, every time I found some different angle from your posts on the same topic which makes me enlightened

Another "stupid" question is coming to my mind (please answer this in your free time ). What is the future of HMG? If our friends agree, we may start a new topic on the future of HMG

With best regards.

Sudip

[sudip]

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Wow, Sudip, you have exactly the same type of company as me.

I am also very happy to know that. BTW, which country you belongs to?
With best regards.
Sudip

[Roberto Lopez]

Another "stupid" question is coming to my mind (please answer this in your free time ). What is the future of HMG? If our friends agree, we may start a new topic on the future of HMG

Well... I have a lot of ideas, but, please, consider that I do HMG in my free time

So, the speed of the advances in the future releases, will depend heavily on that.

Regarding technical aspects, we must go to the web on some way.

Today (not the future) we have requirements to make run our client apps in cell phones or other devices not running Windows.

So, we must find a way to make our applications run on a web browser (such approach will allow us to run our apps locally too).

Maybe, desktop applications will be never extinct, but xBase is about data-centric business applications and those, WILL MUST BE capable to run on web browsers on a near future to be viable.

I have high hopes about that Harbour developers understand this and give us a way to the next step.