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In article <Fo4wH1.A91@lugnet.com>, "David Leeper"
<david.leeper@destiny.com> wrote:
> Hi Tobias,
>
> If you're a computer programmer, I'd definitly suggest using something other
> than the RCX Code method of writing programs for the RCX. NQC is a nice
> environment if you know C. If you know a language that supports ActiveX, you
> can program the RCX using the Spirit ActiveX control. This is a bit harder than
> using NQC, but lets you go the object-oriented route, distrubute binaries
> rather than source, and links you to every other ActiveX control in existance.
> I don't think NQC can do any of those things (Dave Baum, the creator of NQC, is
> on this list, so I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong about that.)
IMHO, spirit.ocx doesn't provide OO capability - it does serve as an
enabler, though.
What it provides is the ability to write a VB program that writes an RCX
program. This VB program can be as OO as you want it, but the calls to
spirit.ocx are still rather awkward.
Of course, this also opens the way for other to write their own
development systems (OO or otherwise) on top of spirit.ocx. In that
sense, spirit.ocx is an enabler for OO programming of the RCX, however
actual OO capability would come from this other development system
(perhaps a full GUI application, or even just a set of wrapper classes
around spirit.ocx to be used within VB).
Don't get me wrong - I'm not knocking spirit.ocx. It allows a lot of very
useful things to be developed for the RCX. However, many people
mistakenly believe that spirit.ocx allows you to write VB programs for the
RCX. Quite simply, this isn't true. The VB program you write runs on the
PC. Its output, however, may be commands or even a program that is sent
to the RCX.
As for binaries, NQC supports generating/downloading binary forms of
programs, but this isn't used too often. Source versions of the program
are much more useful to other people, and so far most users are perfectly
willing to share their work. However, if you needed to keep the source
private, you could still generate a binary file containing the bytecodes.
Dave Baum
--
reply to: dbaum at enteract dot com
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