Roberto Lopez wrote:Hi All,
Looking at the current code, I've noted that some of the original project goals had changed.
Hi Roberto,
I think you didn't look at the code carefully... at all...
and probably you didn't have the time to read the forum...
I personally spent TONS of hours to achieve hmg3 compatibility and if you read page 4 of this thread you will find the interesting calculator of Rathinagiri working in hmg4 with 2 trivial line changes !
I was able to run a program from Luigi (no source in the open) with other trivial changes, adding missing (compatibility related) bits to hmg4.
My idea (that demostrated to be faulty) was that if I could achieve better hmg.3 compatibility some hmg.3 users would test their programs...
It is not true that the original goals are changed. It is true that HMG.3 users doesn't have any incentive to move their programs to HMG.4 because of false informations or unwillingness to test changes...
read the first messages of this thread:
- why move to Qt when 100% of our software is used on Windows ? Also read as: why should we learn new things, change some source code, test all the software again when it is now working perfectly ?
- Qt/hbQt/HMG.4 is SLOW: then Carlos showed that it is not true, on the contrary HMG.4 is the quickest !!! and it is the quickest for a specific reason, it is FULLY OOP from the start to the end ! When Ricci saw it is quick he started to port his program to HMG.4 and instead of porting using HMG.3 compatible syntax he decided to use HMG.4 OOP syntax. He is now reporting some problems in the code that me and Luigi are trying to address
HMG.4, had now exposed things that are related to the way that QT works, making it somewhat less intuitive than HMG historically had been.
What makes you think this ?
Considering that, and the lack of interest (or available time) to achieve a higher degree of backwards compatibility, I think that the project name should change.
I'd change to: "considering the lack of interest from HMG.3 users to dedicate time testing HMG.4 compatibility and reporting problems and the few users (just 2) that did decided to go directly to HMG.4 syntax, I think that the project name should change.". I think it respect truth more accurately
So, IMHO, a new name, that reflects the current project goals better should be used.
I'm not good for names, but, perhaps: HMG/QT or HMG/m (m=multi-platform).
This way, with new (easier to achieve) goals, like 'light' backwards-compatibility and more QT-influenced design, the project could be completed quickly, reaching its beta phase soon.
And, of course, the first version should be numbered 1.0, to make it clear, that it is a different thing.
I'm for HMG/Qt but the / can be a problem. HMG-Qt ? If you agree, I will open a new project in sourceforge.
With Luigi we are already talking about changes in syntax allowed. It will break hmg.3 source code compatibility but with trivial changes, and it preserve "the spirit" of hmg.3. As I said, trivial changes for easier hmg.3 porting.
Other ideas are really more drastic: transform HMG.4 in a full OOP library that should programmed only in OOP (with just a thin dbase sysntax layer). It's my original idea, of a small and quick "business library" over hbQt that makes easier to write code... hbQt needs such a library, you ae going to write one yourself if you program is longer than 100 lines ! And infact I know a programmer that didn't know about HMG.4 and started to write his own, closed source, library.
Francesco