Re: What's wrong with Euphoria??? Newbie perspective...
EU-NOW wrote:
> Euphoria "seduction"
>
> Euphoria's "seductive" power is based on its nice syntax and speed as for
> an interpreted language. It can also be compiled, by a C/C++ compiler or
> spew out C source code, which is a plus too. Many people don't like C/C++
> because is syntax is simply horrible and getting work done is more
> difficult
> and takes longer than it intuitively seems it should to many people. The
> alternatives are Visual Basic, various flavors of Basic, Object Pascal,
> etc... Visual Basic/.NET, VBScript, etc.. are twisted tools of seduction
> by the "evil empire" Micro$oft. They at first appear to be helpful
> and add
> value, but it later becomes apparent that its as equally as nasty as
> dealing
> with C/C++, just different, meanwhile you have given Micro$oft a
> sh*tload of
> your money and your pocket hurts. Delphi could have been the "champion of
> the people" but they were corrupted by the Micro$oft. The head
> programmers
> of Delphi were "BOUGHT OFF" by Micro$oft and Micro$oft got it hands
> on the
> parent's company stock. There is a major freeware and open-source effort
> to clone Delphi and Object Pascal, aka Lazarus
> <a
> href="http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/">http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/</a>
> . They are just beginning and have
> made
> great strides....and they still have some development time to go, but make
> no mistake about it Freeware Object Pascal is here to stay and will get
> better.
Lazarus is good but its still a ways from being completely usable on
the level of Delphi. Plus Delphi just released the newest version,
Delphi 2005, which is simply the best tool for programming Windows
ever designed with support for both .NET and COM apps plus the best
IDE one can find anywhere. Yes, Delhpi 8 did suck but Borland really
fixed themselves up with this release as well as createing Kylix
(Delphi for Linux).
> Why is so-called "Superior" Euphoria not blowing away the competition???
> ...
> So, minus the
> "seductive
> beauty" of the Euphoria language, the problems appear to be:
>
> 1. Lack of help fostering positive "programming relationships" with
> newbies.
>
> When, as a newbie, you encounter the RapidEuphoria website it looks
> like a
> programming "DUMPING GROUND" that new users are suppose to figure out
> "what
> is what" without any help and an old communist propaganda about the
> "superiority of Euphoria". Basically, its NASTY.
>
> As a newbie, what you would like to see is a COMPLETE PACKAGE that the new
> user can start to use in order to be PRODUCTIVE and QUICKLY begin to
> start programming. Euphoria does NOT provide that, but instead provides
> CONFUSION. There is of course a reason for this and I will elaborate
> on that
> in part later.
>
> Furthermore, the jumbled mess of tools that new users are confronted
> with,
> do not have a clear concept of design for RAD or "Ease of Use". Why?
> They are freeware tools, some VERY GOOD by the way, designed by Euphoria
> USERS to try to USE the Euphoria programming language. Frankly this is
> "ass backwards" for a PAYWARE program. One would think that a company
> selling
> a product would be the leaders in putting together a "coherent"
> package for
> new users to start programming and then the FREEWARE would be to
> supplement.
>
> Hell even the FREEWARE Object Pascal and C/++ IDE/RAD/Compiler projects,
> which there are many now, try to offer an "all in one" package to get
> users
> started. Euphoria??? Nope, just a jumbled mess and lots of propaganda.
>
This is true to a degree. But the reason seems to be there's many
different tools out there and many different libraries that they use.
For example, when doing Windows programming you can use Win32lib,
EuWin, wxWindows, etc. and each has their own RAD IDE. I think it'd be
unfair for them to choose to distribute Euphoria with one of them
since that'd show support for one library over another since some
people prefer to use EuWin over Win32lib, Win32lib is more powerful
but EuWin is a lot easier to use. I do think the archive could be
cleaned up a bit though becasue it is hard to find out what's "good"
and what's not. Also, GCC is big but it doesn't come with a RAD IDE
and it's the main compiler for many operating systems.
> 2. RDS's licensing scheme and "choke hold" on Euphoria
> (actually slowly choking to death is more like it).
>
> Now we start to get to the meat of the problem:
>
> . If RDS had charged for commercial or business use of their product and
> allowed it to be free for personal use than use of it would have arguably
> greatly increased.
>
> . RDS could make money "around" Euphoria, instead of directly off the
> source
> code, binder,etc... There could be Euphoria books, RDS professional
> support
> services that answer questions, charging people and businesses for custom
> solutions, etc.. So what about that advertisement for
> RDS Custom Programming??. RDS appears to offer this, but is doing so on
> a SMALL scale, because its trying to bank off the source code, binder,
> and translator. By relying on sales of the binder and translator or
> inhibiting the source code, RDS is instead CHOKING INNOVATION. Thus RDS's
> other business in SUPPORT and Custom Programming can NOT grow. NUMBERS
> COUNT. If NOT al ot of people are using Euphoria than they have no need
> for support. If lots of companies and businesses ARE using Euphoria than
> they need the support. RDS is obviously afraid to let go and the obvious
> reason is short sightedness about how to make money.
This I agree completely with almost everything you said. If the
OpenEuphoria project had something usable I'd be fine but one of the
reasons Perl and Python are so popular is because their open source
and can be adapted to anything. I'd love to see an OpenBSD or an
Apache server module to run Euphoria in a webpage (like PHP) but we
can't until we have an open source Euphoria interpreter becasue not
everyone has the time to make ports and then once you do if a client
needs to use one of these special interpreters you've made from the
source you need to have them buy a code of the source too due to the
lisence. I also think there does need to be some commercial Euphoria
books (I'm actually working on one know) and some better OFFICIAL
tutorials. Now I do realize that programmers need to eat and that many
programmers don't like to lose control of their projects so that
selling this as closed source is the only option available to them but
ALL the popular languages are open source (with the exception of
Microsoft Visual C++ and Delphi). Unless Euphoria becomes completely
open-source it won't catch on. However, I think only the interpreter
should be open-source (since that's the biggest and most usable part)
and that they should charge for the binder/shrouder and the translator.
> 3. Lack of development speed and innovation.
>
> Once you pay for Euphoria, RDS had no further need to develop their
> product. Their "seduction and/or propaganda" worked, they have your
> money, and they will get around to further development whenever they
> feel an urge to do so. If thats 6 months, 1 year, 3 years.... So
> what??? What are you going to do about it? Use the product or leave.
> Actually, if you paid, they got your money, so who cares if you go.
> Even a newbie can tell that the vast majority of development and
> innovation
> has come via the FREEWARE programs and ideas of Euphoria users.
>
> In fact it looks like RDS is taking advantage of the freeware contributors
> and using it to sell Euphoria itself. That looks plain ugly.
>
> The overall development of Euphoria itself as a program has been VERY
> SLOW.
> What this allows is for RDS to "take ideas from users" whenever one seems
> profitable and update their product with it. The IDE that I use and
> several tools were NOT developed by RDS, but were "gifts of love" by
> Euphoria users (thanks, to all you freeware contributors by the way).
> What can be done???
>
> I very much think that RDS should let the Euphoria language grow and allow
> it to be open-source. Its virutally open-source now, since to use the
> language requires numerous freeware tools. By RDS letting go of the
> binder,
> translator, or source code... or at least binder would be a start....
> they
> will allow development on Euphoria to open up and allow it to COMPETE with
> other computer languages. In fact Euphoria could make letting go of the
> binder and making it open source as a promotional tool to encourage new
> users and development.
> Euphoria, despite the initial beauty of its syntax and language, is
> falling
> behind and starting to grow "old and ugly". To compete with the ever
> widening list of rival scripting languages which are becoming more
> powerful
> and "NEWBIE friendly" like AutoIT, AutoHotKey, Python, etc... and to
> compete
> with freeware versions of powerful computer languages and compilers like
> Object Pascal, C/C++, HLA (High Level Assembly... Powerful Free New
> Computer
> Language) than RDS is going to simply have to change its strategy, let
> go of
> the choke hold, and let Euphoria grow faster. RDS can make money through
> support and custom services, but to do that Euphoria has to INCREASE its
> numbers. That means letting tools go and letting them be developed by the
> open-source community. Euphoria can compete with other computer
> languages,
> but it has to be allowed to compete.
I think this is more to do with lack of advertising for Euphoria than
anything. If more people knew about it (as well as being open-source)
it'd be much more popular. Also, we need some good
commercial/professional applications to show the its viable in a
commercial market that'd cause more people to look it over.
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