FAQ

There are some ideas to get money to survive. Some have "Donate" buttons on some of the sites, but they are mostly skipped over by the users. If even 1% of the users actually donated, it would help considerably towards server, power, and bandwidth costs.

One trend I've noticed as more and more Open Source/Free Software projects flow into the mainstream public, is that the general public assumes that if they can download it for free, everything associated with that project must be free, including providing hosting, updates, mailing lists, and documentation and of course software development, which is the big part. They don't seem to realize that time costs money. Servers cost money. Living costs money.

I believe I have worked hard over the last years on Objective-Basic and it is not just another text editor. It's something big, really big. So please do not forget if anything, Free Software is anything but "free" in terms of cost, because we (the developers) bear the burden of costs, so the users can have something useful to use, for "Free". I tried and I tried very hard to get some help from other people to get things started, so though there have been about 100 email contacts from people offering help, but in the end it happend that I had to do all on my own. Most of them just disappeared after asking for comments or assigning tasks without notice or were not able or willing to do special tasks. So I changed my mind and I hope you appreciate my way of doing good software for Mac OS X to bring it on top, especially in the Desktop market.

Best Regards,
Bernd Noetscher

That's why Objective-Basic will cost money. But how much is it?

69.95 Euro (roughly $99 USD) - if would like the license key + documentation in html format

You can order now on the Objective-Basic website.

Migrating to Objective-Basic

Getting away from REALbasic

Objective-Basic provide you with a familiar syntax of BASIC. Additionally, many GUI components are familiar. And it is possible to develop GUI applications with BASIC syntax in a modern fashion. So it comes with Objective-C-like object orientation and backward support for Objective-C and C. Objective-Basic combines the expressive power of object-oriented languages like Objective-C or C++ with the familiarity and ease of use of BASIC.

Why Objective -Basic succeeds
Traditionally, BASIC languages have suffered from the attitude that they are slow and interpreted. But with Objective-Basic you have full access to all existing Objective-C, C, Carbon or Cocoa functionallity. Even it is compiled without runtime dependencies. So your programs are fast and very small.

Why is Objective-Basic a BASIC language alternative compiler for Mac OS X?
Objective-Basic is extremely well built, is a powerfull programming language and has a nice IDE. Additional, Objective-Basic can compile Mac OS X applications combined with Objective-C and C code. Objective-Basic language includes a visual designer (Interface Builder) to build GUI with all the major elements such as windows, menu and data aware controls, such as buttons, labels and frames, textboxes, radio buttons...

The only true official alternative to REALbasic: The project started in 2000 as an open source project... Objective-Basic is a professional development tool, cause this language offers all the elements to design and create professional products. Objective-Basic gives a single, easy-to-use API for writing GUI applications and the application will adopt the look and feel appropriate to native Mac OS X (in fact, you can use Cocoa natively). The language structure, the statements and functions are really simple to understand and the documentation is well written and complete. It comes with a very well done printable manual with more than 140 pages which describe in detail the great number of commands, statements and functions.

A powerful and fully featured Basic-like language: It is completely object-oriented and binary compiled. The syntax is very similar to Java and REALbasic. It is a fully object-oriented languages which uses inheritance and polymorphism. The IDE offers syntax highlighting of the source code, code completion and much more. The main characteristic of Objective-Basic is that it has been created to allow developers with BASIC experience to start programming for Mac OS X without having to learn deeply a new language.

Objective-Basic is a high level professional Basic for Mac OS X and its very good Basic language is constantly improved and updated.

Porting BASIC Applications to Mac OS X

See a comparision of REALBasic and Objective-Basic, the following short paragraphs show you where they are different in ways that is related to porting your project.

Objective-Basic produces fast programs as Objective-C or C does. In fact, it uses the same compiler as Objective-C. When using Objective-Basic you can use any existing Cocoa, Carbon, or C/C++, without difficulties.

Porting means learning and using new keywords and new ideas in general. Actually, why should you switch to Objective-Basic? After learning a new language (Objective-Basic), significantly changing your source code base would be involved, but it is worth it! Cocoa is a great development environment. When you use Objective-Basic you automatically use Cocoa the full featured modern framework of Mac OS X.

Do switch to Objective-Basic ! It gives you full Mac OS X support, no huge runtime, minimal system requirements.

At least, you should try Objective-Basic. You might find Objective-Basic right for you and a clear path to the future.