Quote:Following up on original question from john ellis.....
This raises the issue of a number of questions regarding Sesame and Sbasic. Questions I have no good answers for at this time for my clients. Many businesses today do not want to be single sourced for their programming. If something happens to me, how easy will it be to hire someone else who knows this language? How big is the population of Sbasic developers?
As Sesame is less than six months old, I'm not what the "population" of SBasic developers is. SBasic is a flavor of Basic which follows simple and standard programming rules. If you know Basic, you already know SBasic. It's just a matter of using the command reference to get the specific commands for our library.
Quote:Sbasic almost seems to be a generic language. Can you be more specific about what Sbasic you are talking about?
SBasic is Sesame's built-in programming language created by Andreas Goebel.
Quote:Reading Appendix 1 of the Programming Guide seems to imply that your references to Sbasic apply to the language that is used only by Sesame. It sounds like this is a proprietary language, and no compiler/decompilers are available for use by other developers?
It is a proprietary language. In order to maintain the same syntax and commands as Q&A, we wrote our own language and compiler. SBasic can be run standalone, but only certain commands are available as SBasic standalone would have no access to a Form on any other element of Sesame itself.
Quote:Is this a new proprietary language, "SesameBasic", or Sbasic for short?
Yes.
Quote:============================
If not a proprietary language, than a few more questions:
An earlier posting made reference to Andreas' response to additions to Sbasic. Is this a version developed by him?
Yes.
Quote:Or, is this the same Sbasic created by Karl Lunt severa years ago? Is this his SBasic68K (SB68K), current version 2.7, last updated in 2001?
No.
Quote:Or, is this the same Sbasic created by Ken Simms in 1974?
No.
Quote:Or, is this another version of Sbasic as developed by FLTK, the underpinnings of Sesame?
FLTK is a gui toolkit. It has nothing to do with the programming language.
Quote:Or, is this a version of Sbasic as developed by Lantica or Hammer Data Systems?
There are no other "versions" of what we call SBasic other than the one written for Sesame.
Quote:Or, some other version of Sbasic?
No.
Quote:Can you point out where this version of Sbasic and compiler can be purchased or evaluated?
In Sesame.
Quote:Can you point out any publications specialized in this Sbasic? Manuals, periodicals, textbooks, CDs, tapes, etc.?
The newsletter, Inside Sesame. If anyone wants to produce any third party reference materials, feel free!
Quote:Is there anything available besides the Sesame Programming Guide?
Lots of articles and stuff, but no formal publications.
Quote:Any source of information re internal errors that result in "Contact Technical Support?"
You mean other than contacting Technical Support? Any error that says Contact Technical Support is so severe and internal to the language itself that you won't be able to do anything about it without the source code for Sesame. And, no, you really can't have that.
Quote:I still have my 3" Support Center Manual from Symantec with all of the error code details. This was invaluable, any such tools available for Sesame, from Lantica or other parties?
Well, since that stuff appeared when Q&A was already about 15-20 years old, talk to us in 20 years and I'll see what we can do.
Quote:If this is a proprietary language, then I suspect the only source of information is the Sesame Programming Guide.
It will also mean that we will not be able to see any third party Add-Ons that can be integrated into Sesame. The only new tools will be programming functions that can be created by third parties and those can only be made using the commands provided at the user level, and they cannot be compiled, they may have to consist of many lines of code.
Just the opposite. Sesame is written in such a way that outside developers can completely rewrite the entire client if they wish. That protocol is currently being used to develop utilities internally, but is likely to be made available to third-party developers in the future.
Quote:It becomes an easier sell for Sesame vs. other products when I can let my clients know that they have the flexibility to do many more things if they take the time to learn SesameBasic vs. VisualBasic. They will also be able to expect products made available by other parties besides Lantica to add bells and whistles, to integrate with other applications, etc.
SBasic is nowhere near as versatile as VisualBasic. It's also not anywhere near as gigantic and complicated. It's a question of what your client actually needs. Do they actually need a huge swiss army knife like VB? If not, they may prefer a smaller, yet powerful language like SBasic.
Quote:So, I guess what I have concluded, if Sbasic is a proprietary language, is the need to find out if there are any plans for a Sesame SDK (Software Development Kit)?
Will this have the tools to integrate with other applications using languages other than SesameBasic?
Yes.
Quote:If yes, what time frame, cost estimates?
Sesame is less than six months old, Bob. It's gonna be awhile before we turn our attention past user features, past consultant tools, all the way out to external development API's. We'll let you know. Cost estimates? No clue.
Quote:Are any figures available re the established Sesame population today? Is it going to be worth it to develop any Add-Ons, Integration utilities? What other companies and products are written using SesameBasic? These questions are asked today and there are no good answers yet. Should someone go off to learn SesameBasic, to help with one program, or go to a session for VisualBasic where they can learn how to program for multiple products, from multiple vendors using a more generic language?
I sincerely hope that Sesame becomes the most popular and widely used product ever created. However, as a developer, fortune-telling isn't really my gig. With only a few months of history, I really can't predict how we will compete in the long run against Microsoft and Oracle.
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