Re: [MacPerl] What are MacPerl's capabilities

[Chris Sansom <chris@highway57.co.uk>]

At 09:40 -0500 7/4/99, Robert Pollard wrote:
>I have looked at MacPerl and read the manual to a point.  I am impressed
>so far but I have a couple of questions:
>1) How far can MacPerl go in allowing me to use the Mac Toolbox to do
>things like display a window with the ability to enter into fields any
>information I want and store it in a database of my own design?
>2) If so, does MacPerl hide the Mac Toolbox enough that I don't have to
>be a C/C++ programmer to use it?
>3) What resource is their for understanding the OO portion of MacPerl.
>
>I don't want to buy books and programming tools for MacPerl unless it
>will meet my needs.  Currently I work with 4th Dimension and Oracle.  I
>would like to have an alternative to 4D for developing front ends.

I've read the various replies so far to this, and I feel I should perhaps
throw in what on this list may seem a highly sacrilegious contribution!

I'm hardly a world expert in MacPerl - I use it for developing CGI scripts
that I later upload to a Unix server, so I don't have much use for or
experience of the 'front end' side of it. From what I've seen of it,
though, I would tend to agree with the folks who have said 'a bit easier
than C/C++... but not much'.

Now, here's the sacrilegious part: if you really want something that hides
the toolbox and lets you build a front end in your sleep... <takes cover>
try REALbasic! It's sort of a Mac equivalent of the dark side's Visual
Basic only, from all I can tell, better and more consistent. It's still
fairly new, and constantly under development - you can find out a certain
amount about it (and download a demo) at http://www.realsoftware.com,
though it's not the most informative of web sites. I know there was a plan
for a REALbasic Pro with specialised database capabilities, but
suspiciously there doesn't seem to be any mention of it on the site. BTW,
they also seem to be involved in 4D development, so maybe Robert should
check it out!

(I don't have anything to do with Real software, BTW - just a copy of
REALbasic on my hard disk waiting for me to get stuck into a major project
whenever I can find the damn time!)

 Cheers ... Chris
 ======================================================================
 Chris Sansom    -    Highway 57   -   Designs for the World Wide Web |
 chris@highway57.co.uk                     http://www.highway57.co.uk |
 ======================================================================



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