I've messaged Erel ages ago saying how much I love B4A, and how it was well worth the money. And I just wanted to pass on a more public review of sorts in the hopes it may convince someone one day to invest.
I was originally hesitant to spend $99 on a program a year ago (plus the $25 marketplace fee), I've never spent that much on software that wasn't a video game. But I tried the demo, and it was almost as easy as programming in VB6 for Windows. And considering it's for a much less robust OS, that's impressive. There was almost no learning curve. Yes, I've had to look a few things up, ask questions, and thankfully the community here is quite helpful.
I've tried Eclipse, the free SDK for Android. And it makes you jump through so many hoops to get the slightest thing done. It takes like 3 XML files to make a command button! I know a few people here were trying to justify using Eclipse just for LiveWallpapers, and once the plugin for B4A was made to do that, people were extremely relieved. I made suggestions to Eclipse's devs on how to streamline that mess, and they pretty much told me to get lost. I suggested to Erel that he let us design Activities not by trying to simulate the user controls, but by just showing a box with an icon in it (the abstract designer) and that feature showed up in the next version. There's features in B4A that I find myself wishing VB6 had (ie: highlighting a word shows you all it's instances in the file)
In the year that I've had it, I have spent more time programming for Android than I have Windows. My apps have sold enough to pay for B4A, and for the first time in my life I am making money off my programming (I have this thing where I hate asking people for money for my work, the marketplace bypasses this by having google do the asking) Not only has it paid for itself, but I am actually doing something I went to college for. It makes me feel like a bit of a less failure in life, as my real job is barely a job. To further emphasize how much it paid for itself, my app even earned me a free Blackberry Playbook (worth $200).
Then there's the people I've met. I've already mentioned the people on this forum, I have yet to meet an unfriendly face here. Then there's my users. I've made semi-popular programs for Windows, but I never had audience this big. I've gotten tons of awesome feedback ranging from a patch I made that upped the framerate made someone's day, my app makes them feel like they walked off the set of a movie with a prop, and numerous other compliments that just make me feel like it was time well spent.
Oh, and the crowning achievement in my life is now Michael Okuda (he makes all the GUIs on Star Trek, plus tons of other special effects) linking to my app
I was originally hesitant to spend $99 on a program a year ago (plus the $25 marketplace fee), I've never spent that much on software that wasn't a video game. But I tried the demo, and it was almost as easy as programming in VB6 for Windows. And considering it's for a much less robust OS, that's impressive. There was almost no learning curve. Yes, I've had to look a few things up, ask questions, and thankfully the community here is quite helpful.
I've tried Eclipse, the free SDK for Android. And it makes you jump through so many hoops to get the slightest thing done. It takes like 3 XML files to make a command button! I know a few people here were trying to justify using Eclipse just for LiveWallpapers, and once the plugin for B4A was made to do that, people were extremely relieved. I made suggestions to Eclipse's devs on how to streamline that mess, and they pretty much told me to get lost. I suggested to Erel that he let us design Activities not by trying to simulate the user controls, but by just showing a box with an icon in it (the abstract designer) and that feature showed up in the next version. There's features in B4A that I find myself wishing VB6 had (ie: highlighting a word shows you all it's instances in the file)
In the year that I've had it, I have spent more time programming for Android than I have Windows. My apps have sold enough to pay for B4A, and for the first time in my life I am making money off my programming (I have this thing where I hate asking people for money for my work, the marketplace bypasses this by having google do the asking) Not only has it paid for itself, but I am actually doing something I went to college for. It makes me feel like a bit of a less failure in life, as my real job is barely a job. To further emphasize how much it paid for itself, my app even earned me a free Blackberry Playbook (worth $200).
Then there's the people I've met. I've already mentioned the people on this forum, I have yet to meet an unfriendly face here. Then there's my users. I've made semi-popular programs for Windows, but I never had audience this big. I've gotten tons of awesome feedback ranging from a patch I made that upped the framerate made someone's day, my app makes them feel like they walked off the set of a movie with a prop, and numerous other compliments that just make me feel like it was time well spent.
Oh, and the crowning achievement in my life is now Michael Okuda (he makes all the GUIs on Star Trek, plus tons of other special effects) linking to my app
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