OpenEuphoria

1. Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by ChrisB (moderator) Sep 24, 2014
• 8062 views

Hi

Watched the Euphoria is dying thread, and as usual watched a lot of negativity mixed in with a lot of positive, but suppressed, positive points. One of the most interesting replies was

I don't think the language is dying, I just think that it is being shouted about loudly enough - as I said on EuphoriaAL we need a marketing guru, or strategy.

So what's Euphoria great at (not what are its shortcomings, or what feature doen't it have, or what languages are better)

Firstly how about a bullet list of great points

• Its dead easy to pick up and learn - the newby to the experienced programmer will be writing code in no time.
• It's easy to install
• it's multiplatform
• it's great for the casual programmer
• It's great for writing 2d games (I know we don't have a lot of 2D game programmers, but that would only be a short hop (pun intended))
• Super fast development cycle
• Friendly forum

Now look at the home page - the page where most people who land looking around for a different / alternative / quick programming language (that's what I did). What does that shout at you? That there's been an outage! Who'd want to come back. The home page should be a landing page that grabs someone by the short and curlies, shakes them and says 'Look how easy I am!' (or other such stuff)

Next - I've donated to OpenEu - not a lot admittedly, but where's the list of contributors - the hall of fame. And what 'extras' do contributors get? Where's the T-shirt?

How about Pastey - a great online repository / programming library - how easy it is to find deposited code, how easy to use and so on.

How about the structure of the development team - wheres that displayed, what are the 'job' openings and so on.

How about some real world examples? How about some screenshots?

Lots of tweaks are needed, and none related to actually programming. I really believe that Eu is a better language than Java and Python and Ruby and so on, for a certain type of programmer, of which I suspect there potentially a larger number than the other languages. Yes its got its downsides and detractors, but so do the other languages.

Hope there's some food for thought here!

Chris

3. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by tbohon Sep 28, 2014
• 7840 views

I tend to agree with everything ChrisB says. The language itself is more than usable ... we need 'marketing' and, as my ex-wife would say, 'branding'. Example of the latter: every time someone sees a certain phrase or logo they immediately think of OpenEuphoria. Think of a trademark situation.

The OpenEuphoria home page is OK and if you're already familiar with what OE is it's adequate. BUT ... if you're new (just found it by using Google, e.g.) then it can be pretty confusing. Maybe ChrisB's ideas of 'spicing it up' would be a good first step? My time is pretty limited but I'd be willing to help with ideas, mockups based on those ideas, etc. I WOULD suggest that a group get together 'off-line' from the forum and focus on that without everybody and his brother 'helping' at every stage ... once we have what the group thinks is a workable page and or marketing plan we can then open it up to comments.

Just my 2c worth here of course ... and as always this is worth exactly what you paid for it :) :) :)

Tom
Forked into: Open Euphony -- for "offline" Euphoria discussions

5. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by bugmagnet Sep 28, 2014
• 7832 views

Oh, and for all you alternate syntax types, check out the readme for Ham

bugmagnet

7. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by MatthewMacGregor Oct 08, 2014
• 7499 views

Brief introduction: I've been a longtime observer of Euphoria, and did some work with 3.1.1 a few years back. Here are my thoughts on language adoption:

1. There is little need for another general purpose programming language (as mentioned by g1i1ch and others), which seems to be where OpenEuphoria is currently positioned.
2. Investing in learning a new language and the associated frameworks is like starting a long-term relationship. It's not something to be taken lightly.
3. Coders will learn a new language for one of three reasons: marketable skills, best tool for the job, or curiosity.
4. OpenEuphoria is not situated to provide strong marketable skills (nobody's hiring Eu coders). Some of us will use it because of curiosity, but this means the language will remain niche.
5. In my opinion, this leaves best tool for the job as the ideal position for the language.

The obvious question is which job is OpenEuphoria ideally situated for? It appears that most of the current base uses the language as a general purpose tool, but it's going to be tough to attract new users that way. Consider the positioning of popular languages:

• php: robust web development, scripting
• javascript: client web, desktop, server (node.js), games, ...
• java / c#: general purpose desktop, enterprise web development
• python, perl: sysadmin, general purpose scripting
• c, cpp: systems programming, client application programming, game development (Cpp)

Every language on the list above (including php) could be thought of as a general purpose programming language, and the list is by no means exhaustive. Each language has also found a niche where it is one of a handful of default tools (in a field crowded with alternatives). It's not fair to put Euphoria up against this list of general-purpose languages (even if it's also excellent at solving these same problems).

I didn't mention Lua, but I think it's worth special consideration since Lua has many similarities to OpenEuphoria. The reason Lua is known at all outside of academic circles is because it is an ideal embedded language (we use it for this at my work). Because of this it is the language of choice for AAA game companies to embed and allow for user mods. There are entire industries that have formed around the Lua modding community, and it has also made its way into popular game frameworks:

• CoronaSDK (mobile)
• Love (desktop)
• Marmalade (mobile/desktop)
• MOAI (mobile/desktop)

Lua is no better than Euphoria but it's just perfect for embedding and therefore it's got a following.

Okay, now back to OpenEuphoria. These were the reasons why I was originally attracted to the development environment (more so than the language itself):

1. Very small runtime (a few MB vs. a large framework for java, python, etc)
2. Easy deployment (exe)
3. Extremely fast
4. Cross platform
5. Easy access to native libraries (way easier than other scripting languages)
6. Few (no?) dependencies
7. Translate to c for pure performance

I believe that these strengths are rather unique among scripting languages.

These advantages seem to point at a client side niche rather than server side (where they are less advantageous). I think they are absolutely perfect for a game framework (desktop), which could attract a decent amount of attention to the language. Indie game development is all the rage right now - and there's not a hands down code-only/scripting winner in the desktop gamedev category. Easy access to native libraries and easy deployment makes this a killer combo.

OpenEuphoria is also perfectly situated as a first language, and I think this could be combined with a game development framework as the perfect one-two punch. By attracting new coders with a cool game framework and making it dead easy to get started (would require lots of tutorials, etc) I think Euphoria could be given the necessary "kick in the pants".

In conclusion, in order to gain new users it's not enough to position as a general-purpose programming language. OpenEuphoria must find a niche where its unique strengths are leveraged. OpenEuphoria could reposition by building out a robust game-centric API and tune it for beginners. This needn't be part of the core platform, but a framework built on top of it. It could be given a cool name and logo and launched to get some attention from the (very busy) indie gaming press.

Behind the game engine is the robust OpenEuphoria platform itself, an excellent general-purpose tool. Once coders learn the ropes by making some games, they'll stay and contribute to the core community.

9. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by ChrisB (moderator) Oct 08, 2014
• 7469 views

Hi

Yes, very well thought out, and logically put.

Chris

11. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by MatthewMacGregor Oct 09, 2014
• 7337 views

Yes, that's interesting. One of euphoria's strengths is the ability to address code in native libraries. It makes it almost ideal as a "binding" language, forming the glue between native code. But it's not ideally suited as an embedded scripting language - at least, not that I'm aware of. Maybe one of the architects could set me straight on that?

13. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by BRyan Oct 10, 2014
• 7333 views

In stead of wishing about being able to use scripting in Eu why don't you

go to archive and look at what users have done in the past to get some ideas ??

http://rapideuphoria.com/cgi-bin/asearch.exu?dos=on&win=on&lnx=on&gen=on&keywords=script

15. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by elias_maluko Oct 10, 2014
• 7368 views

I think the main point here is not embedding (for this lua is the winner), but being able to make games in pure openeuphoria. Its more about a framework than dealing with alien languages. Something like Flixel(http://flixel.org) for ActionScript or Cocos2d(http://cocos2d.org/) for python...

Sorry my poor english

17. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by BRyan Oct 11, 2014
• 7201 views

FROM THE DOC IN THE ZIP FILE
Topaz is an imbedded, stack-based scripting engine. What this means is,
Topaz is an engine you can place directly into your Euphoria code.

Here is a refined search for Topaz which was in the first url! http://www.rapideuphoria.com/cgi-bin/asearch.exu?dos=on&win=on&lnx=on&gen=on&keywords=topaz

19. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by EUtoolsSmarty Oct 24, 2014
• 7040 views

I like easy-go Euphoria creeping into my blood and I would be programming just for pleasure, loving structured colored code, endless, forgetting time, nearly reaching bleeding edges and solving errors and hey it works, but leaving also an empty feeling. Thats why I dont want C or Python etc, its too much unnecessary brainwork. Try composing music, and playing a classic instrument is more real life AND fun AND it can open soul, mind, spirit. But why is it that I fabricate a note-reading and playing application ? Just to have the feeling I can control everything ? Building a wooden organ is better than coding but you cannot feed it easily with programmed notes, although it would be so nice to add an interface. (www.youtube.com/user/bd594) It must be obsession, no, possession by technical ... devils.

21. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by Slacker Oct 31, 2014
• 6797 views

It kind of raises the question why the old site is there at all; I mean, the link to Openeuphoria isn't even in a particularly prominent position on the homepage, so presumably many who land on the site won't even be aware that there is a version other than 3.1.1., or if they do, could be forgiven for assuming that it's a development release, and that they should download the "official" release, which is version 3.

Maybe Rob just isn't interested any more; he certainly doesn't seem to have been actively involved in the development of 4.x. Or perhaps the situation is similar to Python, except that the old version of euphoria seems to be "abandonware", unlike Python 2.x.

23. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by Shian_Lee Nov 11, 2014
• 6698 views

Euphoria cannot die, it's too useful to die. I write in 10 Euphoria lines, with my left hand holding a cup of coffee, and only elementary education - what C+ + can do, only after graduating university, with 100 ugly lines.

Who needs C+ +, except for making money??? With storage of multi-giga-bytes, and CPU's of 3Ghz - who needs C+ +??? only system developers. Most of us could forget about C or C+ +.

Writing a spreadsheet using Euphoria, for example, will be much easier to code and *maintain*. Speed...? who cares these days. Then why wasting time with ugly code? you tell me. I prefer to finish programming quicker and go practice Taekwondo. Only Euphoria allows me to live like this - C or Java takes all my time, and yea, we don't live forever.

-

The biggest mistake, in my opinion, of Euphoria developers, is to target the language to experienced programmers. i.e.: being not realistic.

A programming language is like a baby. Baby don't born at the age of 21 years old.

By ignoring young and not experience programmers - Euphoria actually blocked its future. Why can't you all understand it?

For example, how would you all feel if I'll take you to a Tea Kwon Do lesson and expect from you to practice jump hook kick on the first day? - you would all break your backs and be rushed to hospital.

What you're doing is deliberately ignoring young and unexperienced programmers.

Answers as: look at the editors list, tools list, and take a patch from here and combine it with a patch from there - is an immature and pathetic strategy.

The target users for an easy-to-use-all-purpose-language must be EVERYONE to succeed. User should play with the language and enjoy it. If one of 100 users will become a serious programmer it's enough. Users should create their own "fun clubs" for the language. Unexperienced users should get excited from the language after writing "hello world!". The language should reach the people.

Euphoria is too arrogant. and that's what blocking its popularity.

Please wake up: Euphoria should be friendly for 15 years old teens to become popular. MS$ invested a fortune to make their products friendly - just to make them popular.

Now that Euphoria 3 is mature, and Euphoria 4 is great - it's about time to invest effort on making it friendly. Those who criticized the importance of Euphoria IDE are blind and misleading. MS$ invested from QBASIC to "Visual Studio" billions because you cannot gain popularity by targeting your products to old users. Only the young users can make it. MS$ knows it.

Why Euphoria is so arrogant??? Is Euphoria has some kind of feelings of inferiority? Euphoria isn't C+ + - that's the great thing! Euphoria isn't Basic - that's also the great thing! Why targeting Euphoria to professionals by introducing the language with vocabulary that new users never heard about?

It's fine to add struct to Euphoria - lots of experienced programmers might be benefit from it. But don't fool yourselves that it will gain any popularity to this language, because popularity is gained by young and fresh people - not by middle age professionals.

I talk too much but this is really annoying. Non of the developers seem to understand the evolution of popularity - it always starts from young and unexperienced people - which Euphoria ignores deliberately.

25. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by Shian_Lee Nov 11, 2014
• 6668 views

I am 45 years old, and I know something - not everything. I have a lot of experience in other areas, not programming.

All I am trying to do is to help, from respect to your hard and great work.

If you cannot understand my meaning - then this is strange.

"the hubris of youth" is a reflection of the "arrogance of adults". wake up.

27. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by jimcbrown (admin) Nov 11, 2014
• 6667 views

Why not join the dev team and help out even more? Even first time programmers are welcome to join the team.

And of course, Euphoria is largely written in Euphoria itself - so you can help develop the language while honing your Euphoria skills at the same time!

29. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by Shian_Lee Nov 11, 2014
• 6657 views

Actually... I was dreaming about programming in Euphoria and help the team - it's much more interesting then what I've done before. At the moment it's a bit hard to find time from obvious reasons. I actually live in a war zone, and life here are not stable.

Thank you. I got to move now.

31. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by Shian_Lee Nov 11, 2014
• 6611 views

Thank you.

...Lately I asked a friend (51 years old) to help me with a project. He graduated university in math and computers.

He said: I'll use C#, Java, etc - I said: no time. It's my project. Only Euphoria. He was upset but was willing to try.

I could not believe that typing: "eui shians_project.ex" will break our partnership...! In university he used only visual studio...

He told me that Euphoria is useless....(???) can you believe? just because he had to type few letters on the console. In university they don't teach this stuff anymore.

I told him that Euphoria can describe 100 Java objects in a single sequence, and that he's talking nonsense. But... without Euphoria IDE he wouldn't even listen to me. Actually he was angry at me that I didn't tell him from the beginning that there's no IDE with help system.

For many new programmers the IDE seems to be the language itself. MS$ did its best to reach this situation. but now it is a fact.

Personally, I cannot find anyone to help me with Euphoria project - unless I'll supply them an Euphoria IDE. Actually no one here is willing to study Euphoria because of it.

For the new programmers the terminal's name (whichever terminal) is: "DOS". and they are not willing to use "DOS" anymore. I know that it sounds stupid.

33. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by Shian_Lee Nov 11, 2014
• 6671 views

Answer: the old people know the correct way to fight and win. but the young people should climb the walls and hold the spears.

35. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by jaygade Nov 11, 2014
• 6586 views

I'm the same age (almost 45) and started with Applesoft and Commodore BASIC too. I've never understood IDEs even though I keep trying. I have no problems using a basic text editor and the command line.

Obviously, your mileage may vary.

Euphoria is not unique in not having an IDE; I would say fewer than 10% of the available languages have one and must have programs written in standard text editors. A few more languages have REPLs, which is nice. An even newer development which would also be nice would be an online "playground" like some languages have.

37. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by Shian_Lee Nov 12, 2014
• 6510 views

Command line, REPLs, playground - can be compared to GWBASIC, which personally I really liked - but it's NOT rapid, and Euphoria is a rapid language that needs rapid tools.

One may feel comfortable using just a text editor - only if he knows how to use the command line and only if he understand the basic characteristics of the operating system, such as the file system and I/O. New/young/inexperienced programmers do not, and should not, study these things just for writing "hello world!" program. it takes time to grow.

In these modern times, desktops and IDEs is what young people understand; back in the 90s young people understood command lines. To make Euphoria popular you must understand how young people are thinking these days; many of them never ever used a command line and they will not use it in school or academy.

If fewer than 10% of the available languages include IDE - it's a lot! After all, how many languages are popular or useful for all purposes? I was programming PLC's. I can tell you that these days you cannot find a PLC without really-impressive IDE - and there are numerous PLCs these days. If Basic, C, and Java having their own IDE's - then Euphoria must have as well! or you may suggest that Euphoria is less powerful and useful then those popular languages?

Those who underestimate Euphoria - will block its future and popularity. The same thing for Linux OS or anything else.

I am sure that you and me will continue to use all kinds of text editors and command lines; but the issue here is the future and popularity of Euphoria - not our personal taste.

If you leave Euphoria without IDE, while Basic, C and Java do have their own IDEs - then you underestimate Euphoria, and will gain no popularity from the young people these days.

For example, unlike the 90s, all industrial PLCs these days are shipped with free and very impressive IDE, which supports from 2 to 4 programming languages for PLCs. Writing communication protocols using a text editor is something I've done in the 90s - now, it's history.

IDE is not a spaceship; it's not supposed to be so complicated! it's the right investment for the future of Euphoria. And Euphoria should always remain Euphoria, i.e. anyone can use command line and text editor if they wish to.

39. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by DerekParnell (admin) Nov 12, 2014
• 6494 views

Anyone else notice that Microsoft just announced that Visual Studio is now open source and cross-platform?
Forked into: [OT] Microsoft takes .NET open source and cross-platform

41. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by petelomax Nov 13, 2014
• 6436 views

What I'm working on right now might address some of your issues. I'll say no more, but it probably won't be ready for Christmas .

Pete

43. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by Shian_Lee Nov 14, 2014
• 6366 views

That's the spirit!

Thank you.

45. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by GreenEuphorian Nov 15, 2014
• 6315 views

Pete, probably you already know what many people on this forum are thinking: why don't you come back to Euphoria and integrate the changes and improvements you have been working on into Euphoria? This way you would lose nothing, because your contributions will be credited to you, and Euphoria would gain everything. The best of both worlds.

47. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by GreenEuphorian Nov 15, 2014
• 6338 views

It would be a massive gain for the Euphoria community if Pete himself decided re-join it, because he is a very talented developer. Is there something we can do to woo you back, Pete?

49. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by jimcbrown (admin) May 04, 2016
• 5424 views

I'll note that with Shawn's recent fixes http://scm.openeuphoria.org/hg/euphoria/rev/490db928fa10 and http://scm.openeuphoria.org/hg/euphoria/rev/77461ca5af3a we are now closer to the end line.

We have only one major bug left holding up the 4.1.0 release http://openeuphoria.org/ticket/index.wc?per_page=20&page=1&type_id=1&category_id=-1&milestone=4.1.0&severity_id=4&status_id=-1&user_id=-1&actiontype=Filter / http://openeuphoria.org/ticket/933.wc and no blocking bugs http://openeuphoria.org/ticket/index.wc?per_page=20&page=1&type_id=1&category_id=-1&milestone=4.1.0&severity_id=5&status_id=-1&user_id=-1&actiontype=Filter

51. Re: Euphoria isn't dying - just needs a jolly good kick!

• Posted by acEduardo May 27, 2016
• 5071 views

Im 20 years old, started with C at 11, passed by Java, Visual Basic .NET, and some others, like the web langs (JS, PHP), Lua, perl, shell script, etc.

I began to really enjoy programming after learned assembly. Im not obsessed with speed or binary size. (I care about these things, but im not a "shiite") Its just that with it i could truly understand what im doing, and the cognitive load of "jmp eax" is smaller that of "(addr*)();".

But assembly isnt ever what i need. Portability isnt my major concern. Developing GUIs, TUIs, web apps and interfacing with other's libraries are more like a challenge for me.

Im not stating that im super skilled, because im not! Im a begginer in many ways. Never had a employ with programming, nor worked as a freelancer, nor contributed before with open source projects. Im accoustumed with many modern technics, i ever write tests to all my code, but my code havent passed by sufficient eyes to receive criticism. I hadnt worked in teams. Nor graduate in the area. Im doing engineering, programming its a desirable/necessary skill, not so needed like math, thats all.

I was needed of a better higher level lang, a trampoline for my prototypes and ideas, to permit me a faster and easier devel. I often found myself writing a lot of scripts to test concepts, and then rewriting them in other langs. Shell script and JS do only their job, no more. Then i found Euphoria and felt lucky!

I think, maybe the Euphoria lang could work as a brigde between the beginner and the advanced knowledge of a experienced programmer. A plataform that hold the beginner by hand, and let him meet the "black hole" in a friendlier experience. Maybe a customized Geany instalation could fullfil the IDE role for the beginner, with that VT at bottom playing a mixed REPL/shell role.

A plataform for games, for education, and a shiny excelent toolbox for the average people. A similar role played by Basic in the old days, like of enlarged, with a better/modern aproach?

I hope im not too deluded!