Gamba (language)

See also: Gamba

Gambas is a Computer programming language interpreted directed object using the syntax of the BASIC, available for GNU/Linux and other systems Unix or assimilated. It is accompanied by a Interpréteur and a IDE, itself written in Gamba.

Gamba is given for objective to reproduce the facilitated use of Visual BASIC by improving its functionalities. Although its interpreter is not compatible with the programs whose Source code is written in Visual BASIC, Gambas is similar to this language in what it is about a language derived from the BASIC and directed object. However, Gambas is not a clone of Visual BASIC and its author makes a point of insisting on this point. He constitutes nevertheless a relevant solution for the users of Visual BASIC who would wish to create applications for Linux/Unix without having to pass to a completely different environment.

Gamba is a Free software diffused under the license GNU LPG, developed with Paris since 1999 per Benoît Minisini.

Gamba is the recursive acronym of G ambas has lmost m eans low ic (in French, “Gamba wants to almost say BASIC”). It is also the Spanish name of a shrimp of sea, the Aristeidae, whose the logo comes from the project.

The current stable version (December 2007) is the 1.0.19. The version 2, which brings major innovations, is in Release Candidate. Gamba is improved each month and can be advised with all the users of Linux/Unix which wish to make profitable their knowledge BASIC under license GNU.

Gamba is available in the form of packages RPM or deb. for many Linux distributions, in particular Debian, Ubuntu, SuSE or Mandriva.

Functionalities

With Gamba, it is in particular possible of:

to develop an application in line of order,
to develop a graphical interface using indifferently QT or GTK+,
to use databases MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Firebird or any database using ODBC,
to control applications KDE with DCOP,
to internationalize the applications,
to adapt (attention, it is not enough to copy them) programs Visual Basic™ under Linux,
to create networks applications, and to use directly protocols HTTP, ftp, DNS, smtp,
to carry out programs using SDL or OpenGL (what makes it possible for example to carry out plays),
to create Web applications with management of sessions.

Characteristics

Gambas has a low number of classes and symbols compared to the number of functionalities, which facilitates its training,
the graphical interface is independent of the Toolkit used.

Sample program in Gamba

Simple program Hello world writes in Gamba.

PUBLIC SUB Hand () PRINT " Hello world! " END

Alternatives

Hbasic for Linux (Official site)
Visual BASIC for Windows

Bearing towards other platforms/architectures

Gamba is theoretically portable worms of other platforms. Its principal author, Benoîst Minisini, however declared: " In practice, the bearing towards Windows is relatively complicated, it does not interest me, but I am ready to help whoever wants to launch out in it. ". It should be noted however that the Gambas applications in line of order function under Windows with Cygwin.

Gamba functions under FreeBSD except for the version of development. The bearing towards NetBSD is in hand.

Gamba should function under Mac OS X after the correction of some bugs.

The bearing towards the processors 64 bits is envisaged, the author in front of attacking after the release of version 2 finale (Gamba cannot for the moment not to function with pointers 64 bits).

External bonds

Official site
The easy Gamba Doku
Wiki on Gamba 2.0
Kudla: Parcellings RPM for Mandrake
Little programs in Gamba
GambasForge.net: Site of examples in Gamba
a German wikibook to learn the Gamba
Course to learn Gambas 2

Random links: