Share your B4X story forum

This is the place to tell the community your personal "B4X story".

Feel free to post anything that you think is related to your B4X story.

Guiding questions:

What are you using B4X for?
How did you discover B4X?
What were you using before B4X?
What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
What are your future plans with B4X?

It will allow us to better understand our customer needs and it will allow all of the community to be inspired from your story.
 
Last edited:

NJDude

Expert
Licensed User
Longtime User
Ok, here we go, first of all, I haven't done much lately, not because I don't like B4X anymore but because other things and responsibilities are taking most of my time.

To keep this simple I will answer to the questions as posted:


What are you using B4X for?

- Started as a hobby, just to see what this "Android" thing was all about but, B4X allowed me to expand my horizons and get a little deeper, started developing simple apps and after a little while I was 'freelancing' and making some nice coin, but in general, I was using it to come up with nice apps either interesting, useful or fun.


How did you discover B4X?

- Just browsing the interwebz, I was looking for a tool that was easy or at least intuitive and with good features, I did try some others but B4X was the best in my opinion and here we are.


What were you using before B4X?

- I didn't have an specific tool, and I didn't like Eclipse at all and that includes Java which I really didn't want to re-learn.


What have you learnt while developing with B4X?

- That's a little ambiguous question, but what I learned is that there are very good products out there, simple to use, granted, you have to learn them but the learning curve is not really steep, also, people who like this sort of thing and are willing to help (myself included) and if the question is targeting what I learned regarding coding, well, that programming is fun if you have the right tools.


What are your future plans with B4X?

- That's a mystery at the moment.
 

klaus

Expert
Licensed User
Longtime User
I have been programming since the late 70s, always Basic, as a hobbyist.
Languages used: HP Basic, GW Basic, Quick Basic, GFA Basic for Atari, GFA Basic for PC, VB1, VB3, VB4, VB5, VB6 and B4X.

I wrote quite some programs for the company I worked for, most of the time at home. Calculation programs for mechanical engineering, a dynamic simulations and graphic analysis program, this program has evolved over about 20 years, first on a HP 9836 and then on PCs.

What are you using B4X for?
Hobby progarmming.
Simple programs for my personal use.

How did you discover B4X?
In fall in 2007, when I was retired, I was surfing on the Internet for Basic programming languages for Pocket PCs and I discovered Basic4PPC (Basic for Pocket PC) Erels' first baby, because I didn’t like eVB, embedded Visual Basic for Pocket PC. I downloaded the Basic4PPC demo version and 2 hours later I bought it.
Then in 2010, I began with Basic4Android, now B4A, because Microsoft abandoned Pocket PCs (Windows Mobile) and Erel developed B4A.
When B4i was launched I looked at it to learn how it works.
The same with B4J and B4R.

What were you using before B4X?
eVB, embedded Visual Basic for Pocket PC.
I haven’t used any other tool than B4X for Android nor for iOS. PC history on top.

What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
A lot. How all these platforms work, their evolution and their differences.

What are your future plans with B4X?
Study cross platform projects and continue this exciting hobby as long as I have pleasure doing it and support in the forum.

Sorry, I wrote more about the past than for the future. But look at my age and you'll understand why.
 

Dave G

Active Member
Licensed User
What are you using B4X for?
Porting existing apps. Rewrote an app I previously created using Xamarin in C#. Same functionality with an APK of 370K vs Xamarin APK of 16MB! Don't miss the semicolons, case sensitivity, cryptic syntax at all.
How did you discover B4X?
Ran into it last December and fell back in love with software development.
What were you using before B4X?
Xamarin C# Android, VB.NET on Windows Mobile, VB.NET on Windows.
What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
That there is an amazing B4X community.
What are your future plans with B4X?
Hoping to rewrite a Wear app when the wear library support AndroidX.
Wish List.
More documentation on libraries. Wear library for AndroidX. More examples (Xamarin had a lot of examples, but they have tapered off).
BTW, been developing software since 1975 (AT&T/Bell Labs). Started with Basic Plus on a PDP/11 running RSTS/11 (Resource Sharing Time Sharing). Subsequently with several other companies (DEC, own consulting firm) and programming languages (Vax Basic, VB3-6, C#, COBOL, Fortran, Assembler, etc.). Semi retired and great to fall back in love programming with B4X.
 

nobbi59

Active Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Just found this thread and thought ill tell my story...

What are you using B4X for?

Im using B4X for hobby and professional projects. I especially like how easy it is to create Apps & servers in a very short time period.

How did you discover B4X?

I got an ad on Youtube while watching a VB .Net Tutorial in 2012/13

What were you using before B4X?

I started to learn VB .Net but after discovering B4X I skipped that and continued with B4A. B4X made the step into programming really easy and I learned a lot. After 2 years with B4X I also started to learn other languages like C# and JS. (Its really cool how easy it becomes to learn new languages after you understood the basic patterns of programming)

What have you learnt while developing with B4X?

Back then I learned how easy you can achieve your first results and then keep learning. B4X provides a very good learning curve for beginners.

What are your future plans with B4X?

After B4A became open source I dont have to worry about limited source control anymore. Now I want to use B4A in more of my professional projects because its so much less nerve wracking than the other alternatives.


I have to say that you did an amazing job creating B4X and im very thankful. I wish you all the best and a lot of success with B4X in the future!
 

amidgeha

Active Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
This is the place to tell the community your personal "B4X story".

Feel free to post anything that you think is related to your B4X story.

Guiding questions:

What are you using B4X for?
How did you discover B4X?
What were you using before B4X?
What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
What are your future plans with B4X?

It will allow us to better understand our customer needs and it will allow all of the community to be inspired from your story.
Started programming in 1982 at IBM using C Set++ for OS/2 which is a C/C++ development system for creating 32-bit OS/2 applications and assembly language for the Mainframes (360/370) after that I used Turbo pascal, IBM WebSphere, JAVA (1996) and later the MS Visual Studio, VB, VB.Net, C-Sharp and Embarcadero.

What are you using B4X for?
Restaurant apps, OBD2 Scanner tools, scraping information, file transfer and many personal tools.

How did you discover B4X?
My son gave me the link, it was a blessed day.

What were you using before B4X?
Embarcadero, Xamarin, Eclipse and Android Studio

What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
I learned that B4X is the right tool that can save you hours, days and months of hard work

What are your future plans with B4X?
I would like to use it to teach kids programming.
 

rabbitBUSH

Well-Known Member
Licensed User
Started an interest in progaming in the mid-70s in BASIC (just BASIC no GW- / -A / Q- etc) on some weird mail order units pre-spinning disk storage. Eventually a hobby became a job [bonus]....{go sub (whatwereyouusingbeforeB4X)}

What are you using B4X for?
So, after all that, now retired and looking to
supplement income;​
keep the brain active and interested in problem creation and solving;​
making collection management phone based;​
creating phone based exposure for a national sector training and education authority;​
long awaited arduino/ESP32 projects started from scratch (B4R) (never had the time nor background)​
just plain extending the fun.​

How did you discover B4X?
If I remember correctly a friend mentioned it when we were talking about Android programming options. A bit of Google later "alternatives to Android Studio" or just Android programming tools). AND, finding this forum and noting how different its attitude and the open-minded approach of its members played a big role at the final stages. Not forgetting, that at this point Google found @Peter Simpson 's challenge to his mates in AS. That was it, no-brainer. Had already downloaded the B4A Trial at that point - but pretty much by the end of Peter's mail bought the License....

Contrary to popular believe in another thread : ITs not that hard to find B4X in a search. There again Google is only as good as the question you ask....

What were you using before B4X?
......
and then it was through FORTRAN, C, Pascal, tiny bit of assembler, and a host of forgotten flavours of the repetitive constructs of IF..THEN..ELSE FOR .. NEXT Do While WHILE DO etc etc etc. Latest work was in PHP developing in-house one off scripts for research department; main one being an image and GIS database back and front end for users to access data and image files for download.

Tried Android Studio and Jet/jelly/beans but gave up......too much JAVA for my age.....well for any age really.....Which means THANKS to the guys here who DO have JAVA and contribute all those libraries and so on.

What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
Its re-enforced one of my developer principles devised after years of doing it : The FRONT END is really important in keeping your user happy, engaged with your software and still speaking to you. So many APPs / programs are written from a directly programmer viewpoint = meaning getting those 50 lines that are the work-horse code running (and/or efficiently) so that there is no regard for the lengthy / non-existent path users are stuck with at the end. Anyone get irritated by five clicks to get to either a dead end or a sub-menu ....?

As an aside. Think what you like about Steve Jobs, but, he wasn't a programmer, and if you read about his chief industrial designer {Jonny Ive) and how they interacted, Jobs's big thrust was always make it easy to use, make it cutting-edge, you've got 10-days to production. (Jonny Ive may have been from close to @Peter Simpson 's neck of the woods.)

Might FINALLY be getting the hang of CLASSES and OBJECTS that those academics in Com Sci departments have rammed down our throats.....:mad:

What are your future plans with B4X?
  • Keep my days,or part of the days, (er nights ?) occupied with challenges;
  • bring ideas stored for some years to fruition now that I have a REALLY usable tool / IDE;
  • After years in the academic world (as a technician), enjoying the exchange of technical knowledge without having to deal with 'stole-my-research' paranoia;
  • carry on learning in the Nelson Mandela mould (life-long learning).
O and see same question in #3......

Actually, even if I stop doing B4X coding I'll still follow these fora, Chit Chat in particular (what B4xers do in downtime, and proof that downtime is never idyll).

Tha'l do Pig .....🐷🐖
 

inakigarm

Well-Known Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Started programming in 1984 with ZX Spectrum 48K mainly in Basic; after that, as a part of academic studies, I've learned Assembler,TurboPascal, TurboC, AS/400 -Basic, PLC programming and Labview.
After that, mainly all of the programming was in the hobby part (except Office VBA), AmigaBasic -GameCreator on Amiga 500, and VisualBasic on PC and I always like technology and console gaming
I don't know why but never liked C and Java syntax (made some courses but I've a barrier to learning those languages)

What are you using B4X for?
Domotic systems with B4R-B4A-B4J (like this: https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/threads/security-system.76991/#content), simple apps on B4A for everyday use (qualifications test, particular apps for my childs, etc..) and a B4J app for avaluate childs reading difficulties (my most complex app a desktop B4J app and a VPS system with JRDC2 and a web page displaying the results with jserver : https://www.b4x.com/android/forum/t...eading-difficulties-evaluation.79819/#content)

How did you discover B4X?
Googleing to find an Android programming environment with a non Java syntax (it was around 2014)

What were you using before B4X?
Mainly Office VBA, I didn't program so much at that time

What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
Thanks to B4X platform, I've learnt and understood a myriad of other connected fields when apps had became more and more complex (like SQL-SQLite, WebServices, Javascript, the Arduino ecosystem, etc..): B4X had allowed me to achieve and apply this knowledge.

What are your future plans with B4X?
I'll continue with the hobby part (mainly on B4R and integrated with B4A-B4J (desktop and server apps)); I'd like to finish my first game (a Pang like game) made with XUI2D but didn't find the time to finish..
 

Descartex

Well-Known Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
Hi everyone!
I'm from Asturias, Spain.
I have been programming since, when I was 12 years old, my father brought home a huge and heavy 8088 that a friend of his who worked in a bank gave him when they exchanged them for a very powerful 286 ...
I started reading a lot of books (I love reading) about programming and did my first program a month later in Basic (a rudimentary agenda to plan my study sessions and optimize the time I spent on my "research" in the library). I have always been very self-taught.
Now I spend my time programming in B4A, B4i, PHP + MySQL + JavaScript. I've also made some simple projects on Arduino for some friends such as home irrigation systems, garage door opening, light controllers, weather stations...
Let's go for the questions:
What are you using B4X for?
Mainly for developing third-party apps, for clients that contact me from mouth to mouth from other clients... (fortunately)
How did you discover B4X?
Surfing the web, I've discovered a easy-to-use platform that allows you to reuse the code for iOS developing, and it allowed me to spread my apps to iOS (I hate C and all its mutations)
What were you using before B4X?
Android Studio for veeeeery simple apps.
Also, I've about 20 years of experience on PHP+MySQL+JavaScript...
What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
I've realised that I had no idea about mobile developing before I've joined this huge family
What are your future plans with B4X?
Still developing on this way, still learning from Community knowledge, still making friends thanks to this magnificent tool and this amazing Community.
I'm starting on migrating some simple projects I've made on Arduino to B4R... but it's a little complicated now... I have low time to spend with this...
This summer I've planned to introduce my 9 years old kid to programming with this tool... He shows interest in these activities, he has computer skills, as his teachers tells to me, so I will try to develop and enhance his emerging skills, while I can enjoy time with him.

Warm hug!
 

josejad

Expert
Licensed User
Longtime User
Hi!!

I start studing IT but I didn't finished my career. So my job is not relationed with it, but obviously in some projects we need some helpers.
In one of this projects, we need to do a very long checklist with photos, and the workers always forget something (it doesn't matter they were following the checklist reading on computer, paper, ...).
So I thougth, could I make an app for this? After waking up of a blackout when I installed and tested Android Studio, I check some easy ways of doing an APP, and I found MIT App Inventor, and some of their based forks (AppyBuilder and so on). The app was made and workers start to use it. Soon I saw some of the limitations (services, layouts, ...) and start searching for something more advanced.

My company made a small contest with a money prize for workers who made suggestions about how to get better in H&S. So I proposed an app to make some checks before starting the jobs. I won, so I decided to check for a serious way of making apps and spend some of the money in it.

I tried appcelerator, Phonegap, ... with no success (you know, we always want to open the RAD and 10 minutes later watch something working).
I was near to choose LiveCode, and I don't remember exactly how, I found B4X. So I download it, and... 5 minutes later I was watching something working on my phone!
After reading about layouts, and Listviews, I remember I ask in the forum how could I achieve an specific layout, I got the answer in a while... and I decided to buy!
I had seen sometimes while checking that red message in the web about offers with the B4A+B4i bundles, so I wait a couple of weeks, and... I got the bundle (I've never used B4i, but... who knows).
I had a problem before the name I register with the first time, and when I bougth the product, so I never finded that very first post of mine.

I can't spend as much time as I like programming, but I'm learning a lot of things, and getting a lot of resources from forum.
I hope in the future to be able of using the complete ecosystem, having an APP with B4A and/or B4i, and a backend with B4J (or even with BANANO or ABMaterial)
 

CyberDroidWare

Member
Licensed User
I have been programming since the late 70s, always Basic, as a hobbyist.
Languages used: HP Basic, GW Basic, Quick Basic, GFA Basic for Atari, GFA Basic for PC, VB1, VB3, VB4, VB5, VB6 and B4X.

I wrote quite some programs for the company I worked for, most of the time at home. Calculation programs for mechanical engineering, a dynamic simulations and graphic analysis program, this program has evolved over about 20 years, first on a HP 9836 and then on PCs.

What are you using B4X for?
Hobby progarmming.
Simple programs for my personal use.

How did you discover B4X?
In fall in 2007, when I was retired, I was surfing on the Internet for Basic programming languages for Pocket PCs and I discovered Basic4PPC (Basic for Pocket PC) Erels' first baby, because I didn’t like eVB, embedded Visual Basic for Pocket PC. I downloaded the Basic4PPC demo version and 2 hours later I bought it.
Then in 2010, I began with Basic4Android, now B4A, because Microsoft abandoned Pocket PCs (Windows Mobile) and Erel developed B4A.
When B4i was launched I looked at it to learn how it works.
The same with B4J and B4R.

What were you using before B4X?
eVB, embedded Visual Basic for Pocket PC.
I haven’t used any other tool than B4X for Android nor for iOS. PC history on top.

What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
A lot. How all these platforms work, their evolution and their differences.

What are your future plans with B4X?
Study cross platform projects and continue this exciting hobby as long as I have pleasure doing it and support in the forum.

Sorry, I wrote more about the past than for the future. But look at my age and you'll understand why.
Feelow VB Expert!
 

LarryK

Member
What are you using B4X for?
I have a special needs daughter who doesn't have the use of her arms or legs. She is able to access a PC with the use of a single switch activated by the press of her cheek. I am using B4R and B4J in conjunction with Arduino and ESP8266 hardware to allow her to control her environment. (Think lights, TV, etc.

How did you discover B4X?
I ran across an article in Nuts & Volts magazine (Feb. 2018 The Design Cycle by Fred Eady). He explained the use of B4R Serializator for an iPhone application, and I was able to modify it for the NodeMCU and Windows.

What were you using before B4X?
I have been programming in VisualBasic forever, but mostly as a front end for databases.

What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
That B4X is a lot easier to learn than C++

What are your future plans with B4X?
I want to continue to make my daughters life easier, more fulfilling by developing more IOT-type applications.
 

udg

Expert
Licensed User
Longtime User
to allow her to control her environment
That is what informatics should be all about. Make people life easier.
 

Erel

B4X founder
Staff member
Licensed User
Longtime User
What are you using B4X for?
I have a special needs daughter who doesn't have the use of her arms or legs. She is able to access a PC with the use of a single switch activated by the press of her cheek. I am using B4R and B4J in conjunction with Arduino and ESP8266 hardware to allow her to control her environment. (Think lights, TV, etc.
This is really heartwarming for me to read :)
 

Jeanc161

Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
What are you using B4X for?
I use the B4X for professional programming, I develop many apps for android, and IOS, and i use B4J for building my tools in wich to program and set many different type of files into a standard structure that can be used in B4A and B4I, I'm in my retirement and still programming as a source of extra revenues and i've been doing this for the last 4years or so using B4X.

How did you discover B4X?
I was looking for a simple way to develop apps on Android and IOS, and when i search the web for a solution, i discover the B4A and B4I, that was 4 years ago and i have now some app in the play store, the apple store, and currently programming 4 new apps in both android and IOS using the same type of files that are created with B4J and can be used on cross platform. (Those are very complex structured and unstructured data from thousand of files)

What were you using before B4X?
Before that i was using any programming language that i can use to accomplish my job on many domains of programming, But the most language i used over the decade was Basic at any sauce, since the PDP11 from digital, then on 8080 Radio shack model 1, 2 3, Color computer, then on IBM PC using Basic and Assembler, i start to fully works on that domain in 1985, when we develop our own Accounting software that we sell to the mass with a great success using BASIC and Clipper on IBM PC, thet we evolve to foxpro on PC, then VB4 to VB6 over the years, i've been doing this in many companys, then we discover the internet in it's early days, so i used HTML, Java, Javascript and many others language, I also learn the SQL Language and became a DMA with high paying jobs. I also learn C, C++, Java, and VB6 for a very long time.

What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
I've learn a new trick (Who says you can teach an old dog a new trick) with B4X that i can do the job i need to do simplier using a language i was comfortable with over the years, i used it for the last 4 or so years, to learn it ,make some test apps and develop and approch on how to do what we are doing now using the B4X , that was a project that we work for since 2000, and now we are simply finishing a very complex project that took me over 20 years to accomplish, and i'm realy proud now that i have acheive the final project. I just finished last week and it's going to be on the play store in a week or two. I could not accomplish that project without the B4X, and i love this programming language.

What are your future plans with B4X?
Continue developping my special project using the B4X and sell my apps over 245 country around the world, but that will take some time again to accomplish, and i may not see the end of it, as it is an ongoing project for years to come. So i hope even with the coming of the FREE B4X that this community will exist in 5 or 10 years from now, so maybe somebody else will continue my projects and distribute it around the world.

NOTE: The app i develop is used by goverments around the world and is used for Duty, Income revenus administration (Income Taxes), and customs. So keep developping stuff i know i will use it in the next versions of B4X.

So this is my little story i made programming computers my carrier and been doing this for the last 40 to 50 years, and still going... Thanks all
 

Peter Meares

Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
I, like Klaus have been programming since the 70's. Mostly hobby stuff at home with the occasional work project with databases.
Plenty of Basic, and C, and then AutoHotKey (AHK), Arduino, until I bumped into B4X. Now the challenge of classes, and objects are available to explore.
I use it to help with Crosswords, Maths puzzles, and general experimentation with coding.
I am really just a butterfly flitting around, filling in hours watching a monitor instead of watching TV.

Great software, Thank Erel.
 

giggetto71

Active Member
Licensed User
Longtime User
What are you using B4X for?
I use B4X for all my programming activity. Maily I use B4A to publish my APPs as gigiosoft on the Google Play market. I actually have 4 but I am publishing the 5th in the next weeks. As for the others I use B4J to program my RaspberryPI's in the house ( I have a couple, one acting as MQTT local broker and node-red server) and B4R to programm all the ESP8266 devices (WeMOs, NodeMcu) for the various sensors (Temp, Hum, AirQuality) I have all interfaced via MQTT and accessible thanks to node-red to Alexa.
How did you discover B4X?
Searching the internet in Sept. 2014 while I was looking for a way to learn how to program my phone.
What were you using before B4X?
I tried Eclipse but I was not even able to make an hello word App. With B4A in less than a month I was able to publish an app on the market! As for the RPI I was using some Python.
What have you learnt while developing with B4X?
As a seasoned programmer (I started using basic back in 1983 with my first Sinclair Spectrum 48K) and a classic VB lover I was incredibly happy to avoid to restart from 0 with another language and just focus on the content. Additionally when I discovered that I could use ONE single tool essentially for all my devices I could not believe it! I was a dream come true! When talking to other people sharing the same passion, they had to use Arduino and C for the ESP, Python for the RPI and then some java for windows based apps..and all struggled with this mix. The other incredible thing is the community..Never seen anything like that! Competent, kind, responsive plus of course Erel...once I found an issue with the MQTT library and the close method. Well, Erel fixed it and the lib was released in few hrs..Unbelievable!
What are your future plans with B4X?
Have fun and then more fun. I also plan to introduce it to my kids..in this respect I would like the B4X family to introduce a B4K (Basic 4 Kids) maybe blobks based..don't know..Also it would be great to have a Palette for Node-Red to create B4X functions in node-red.
 
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