B4J Question B4J vs B4A

[Julio Ochoa]

I bought B4A and BAJ is free... my question is.. what is the benefit of B4A vs B4J? do you suggest I start developping in B4J in spite of B4A?

 

[giga]

As Erel mentioned in the tutorial B4J is a development tool very similar to Basic4android.
B4A generates Android applications, (can be used on Android OS)
B4J generates standard Java applications (can be used on multiple platforms JAVA driven).

in my opinion I would familiarize yourself with the functions of one and it will make it easier to use the other.

Good Luck

 

[Erel]

As giga wrote the two development tools are similar but each one targets different platforms:
B4A - Android
B4J - Windows, Linux, Mac

So you should use both of them

 

[Julio Ochoa]

Thanks for your answer... but I still do not undertand something:
if B4J is free, why some people would like to buy the B4A is they have to pay for it? I bought B4A and only want to understand if there are some advantage about B4A or if is better to switch to B4j

Thanks...

 

[thedesolatesoul]

You have to buy B4A to develop apps for Android

With B4J you cannot develop apps for Android

 

[dilettante]

Since the programming language and many libraries are very similar, the two development systems allow you to reuse what you know about one (B4A) to program using the other (B4J) and vice versa. I would expect quite a few users of the free B4J to become interested in B4A and consider acquiring a license so they can write Android programs. So it isn't a bad idea as a marketing move.

While the languages are quite similar, the structure of programs on Android vs. generic Java (Windows, Linux, etc.) are of course different. B4A uses the native GUI widgets, B4J uses JavaFX.

One other way to look at B4J is as a supplement to B4A. Maybe you have an Android application that needs to connect to a server somewhere to provide back-end services. Could be a shared database, could be other persistent storage to hold Android device application state, etc. Android game high scores?

So since straight Java is highly portable, you could write such services using B4J and test them on your LAN. If you need to make them publicly visible to support your published Android app it is easy enough to find hosting on the Internet that can run these services. Even a lot of cloud computing vendors can host such a service on a Linux or Windows instance for you charging usage-based rates which may be cheaper than monthly rental of a virtual or physical host machine.

Or maybe you're just a B4A programmer who needs to write some Windows or Linux programs. B4J lets you repurpose some of your B4A experience, since B4A doesn't run on those platforms. The results can be more practical than running B4A in an Android emulator or VM.

Just my take on it anyway.

 

[Julio Ochoa]

Thanks for your answer.... I undertood very well... thanks..

 

[Erel]

@dilettante I couldn't have said it better...

Note that in the future B4J will have a server profile which will make it easier to implement the solution back end.