So I’m poking around the C11 IDE, found the source code for SharpDevelop, and wondered if anyone has bolted the Clarion parts into a new version of SharpDevelop?
At this stage I havent delved into .net or #develop, but in your opinion how much work would it be to bolt Clarion into a new version?
I need to prioritise work, trying to get that balance between happy with the IDE after customisations in order to release some apps and the need to release apps to get money in.
SV, with all of whatever source code, .NET knowledge, and #develop know-how they have for the dictionary editor, window formatter, report formatter, and entire appgen UI has not done it in well over a decade.
I’m no expert on success or happiness, but it seems like you would be happier if you prioritized something else. I’m guessing that you would need resources that we don’t have.
Considering the past promises, would it be best to conclude there’s not alot more going to be happening to Clarion bar maybe the Unicode/Ansi stuff for the foreseeable future?
I havent been able to find much search the Floridian company records.
Just a word of warning, the versions listed MIGHT be the original purchased versions and I’m fairly certain a lot of work had to be done to make it functional. SharpDevelop was buggy!!!
Also keep in mind that not all pieces of the IDE are net, the App tree is Win32.
There are other development tools apart from Clarion 
Have you tried developing with Sharp Develop itself? It’s open source, which some believe is a path that Clarion should take? 
Going through the colouring schemes C:\Clarion11\data\resources\ColorThemes easily shows what is .Net and what isnt.
The AppGen is definately Win32, the Dct I think has had more work on it to make it fit inside the SharpDevelop IDE and work with .Net interfaces, but is still fundamentally Win32, from my cursory glance.
I know looking back, there wasn’t much resource or info on .Net back then, mainly because it was all paid for, hard to justify expenditure and another “learning experience”, but now its been out for a while, free training can be found which makes it easier, even things like Youtube is now more established which helps.
Its a typical lifecyle of software, paid for spin off stuff comes first, once established free stuff starts appearing, that is sometimes better explained and understood than the paid for stuff, as people have had time for it to sink in and make sense.
I havent yet, I’ve been concentrating on my Code Generator for the last 4-5years (that I still need to forensically recover), an AppGen template set with additional #RunDll’s that could generate any code for any platform.
I dont think OpenSource is good for software, mainly because everyone wants to work on the cool stuff, no one wants to fix the bugs, income/revenue is an issue, it relies on falsehoods, namely everyone can inspect the code, technically true, but in practice it doesnt really happen, because of TLDR and often means becoming expert in many languages, so human laziness and hubristic trust lets major bugs through like HeartBleed.
Its driven by University.
Believe it or not, and considering the expense of going to Uni, these megalithic behemoths rely on OpenSource to teach people.
You could also consider OpenSource, when looking at the licensing, namely the MIT licence variants, that OpenSource isnt OpenSource but simply Anti-Capitalist University Software (ACUS), designed to drag down capitalistic business ventures, by virtue of simply existing and being a free/low cost alternative for cost concious purchasers who want a value for money solution and low cost graduates are in the job market and have experience in OpenSource, ergo the collective University’s way of maintaining dominance on employment and theory’s of what goes.
I dont think Clarion should be OpenSource, but I think an educational version should exist to get it wider exposure and uptake. The templates are too good an idea, the language is too nice, something only Python can perhaps rival, and generally it works the best in the domain it was originally designed for which is windows based database applications. Now as it happens almost everything is a database of sorts now a days, data is money, but without money, Clarion isnt perhaps going to be as cutting edge as we all hope.
that the Clarion .NET product was developed by Arcadia, a company in St. Petersburg, Russia. The contract was supposed to start in mid-2004 and take 4.5 years (or 500 man months) with a team of 10 developers. (Icetips Blog)
You need to bolt on DctEditor, ProcTree, TplPrompts, EmbEditor, Window & Report designers, AppGen, Compiler, Linker… How many man months are you going to put on it?
I havent seen @ArnorBld blog until now. Its an interesting take on clarion.net but doesnt affect the desktop which is why we are all still here.
I’m not currently in a position to spend man months bolting Clarion into a new Sharp Develop IDE, but your comment makes me wonder how much work was spent on Clarion/SharpDevelop bolting it all together versus bringing the old C6 hybrid IDE upto 32bit.
Surely the hard work is done now, or has the later versions of the Sharp Develop IDE changed drastically which forces much more work?
With hindsight, the C6 IDE was very optimised and easy to work with.
I struggle with these data pads that can be pinned or flyout and think these interfaces are a backwards step by Microsoft now that I have to use them.
I’m just so much slower with these pads and other bits of the IDE, I’ve got to get my own productivity up because I’ve not been able to release anything written in C7 or later, and I’ve used up all my money waiting and now on the streets.
Even things like the four arrow cursor in the window formatter is horrible. Can I change it? Not that I can find!
Take the data pads, like the window control data pad, can I make that bigger in font size? Not that I can find.
С11/C12 IDE generates code 6-10 times faster than C6 IDE. If templates are actively used, this is a very significant argument. C11/12 IDE is significantly more functional than C6 IDE, but C11/12 has many bugs. From this perspective, C6 IDE can be considered bug-free. About 20 years ago, I considered how to overcome the limited functionality of C6, including the development of an alternative IDE. However, I ultimately decided that it was not worth the effort. Instead, I develop internal software that is used in conjunction with the Clarion IDE. This approach was described by Barrington in the past. Some of the functionality for optimizing development speed is included in the user software as a basic feature of our internal framework. This works well.
All IDE’s have their bugs, C6 had its bugs so does C11.
The difference with C7-C11 is when the IDE hangs or crashes I lose hours of work. Typically this is in the window formatter, but it can happen when I’m jumping into an embed or to another procedure. Its stable if I work slow, but as I get in the zone and speed up, thats when the C11 problems occur for me.
I have considered this myself, my AppGen template builder would have been very suitable to the point I’d even have had a stab at writing my own OS after writing my own IDE, even though some have suggested to build Windows today, that would take over $1billion dollars. Patents would be the only other issue then. I’m sure some of it would have infringed the first to market US tech sector in more ways than one. Ergo they have a monopoly enforced by patents.
I guess that figure is arrived at using typical market available programmers and thats before we get into a debate of whether the current security model for OS’s is suitable or not.
I’m not sure what you are referring to? I haven’t written about #Develop or Clarion.net in over a decade.
I would say that if you wanted to plug Clarion into #Develop, you’d need several years to do it, and I completely fail to see the reasoning behind it. #Develop was a framework that SV chose to build Clarion on, and I think they plugged in a newer version of #Develop at some point. But that was many years ago and you would have to rework all the inner workings of the IDE, and in effect rewrite it from scratch.
In C10 and higher you have options to change the font sizes for various parts of the IDE. You can also create your own themes, where you can change things. That works in C9.1 as well where I do most of my work.
It took some time to shift over to the new IDE and some things are slower, report designer in particular, but with it also came a lot of productivity enhancements, like changing properties on multiple controls at the same time, etc. I maintain an old program in C6.3 and I dread having to work in it.
Like any new environment, it is just about coming to terms with what you are using. It makes no difference if it’s Clarion, Visual Studio, Photoshop, PHPStorm, Visual Code, or whatever else you use. The environments are as different as they are many and it’s just part of the learning experience.
@FominTools had posted a link to your blog Clarion.NET, Clarion#, Visual Studio, C#, VB.NET… Where do I stand? Where do YOU stand? – Icetips Blog
I think the general consensus is any changes to the SharpDevelop IDE is going to take a long time.
I’m currently experimenting with a 1280 x 720 screen resolution as it makes the pad text bigger. I’ve yet to find the setting that controls the font size in the pads, just like I cant find the setting that controls the colour of the font in the MenuStrip. I’ve even added extra elements following the same naming schema as other sections but no joy.