Focus on development

When I read the developers site it seems to completely focus on developers wanting to build the Haiku kernel itself. What I am missing is the part for beginning developers that want to use Haiku as the development platform for applications, with items like

  • what libraries do I need to install
  • what do I have to type? (Someone informed me, that I needed to use setarch x86 for the newers compiler, but that would have been a item on the app developers site)
  • how do you configure your system, so that your compiler and tools, know where to find stuff etc.

Not all developers have the patience to dive in a system and break their teeth on quirks of an exotic operating system. They simply move on, if they dont understand the system or if it seems broken from their perspective.

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Yes, we need better “getting started” documentation for developers. I’ve been meaning to work on that, but am not sure where to put it, and haven’t really had time to think about this or write it…

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It could be a “Haiku developer guide” that can grow like the user guide. It may even be packaged and installed alongside the BeBook/HaikuBook.

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It could be a “Haiku developer guide” that can grow like the user guide.
It may even be packaged and installed alongside the BeBook/HaikuBook.

Sounds like a good plan :slight_smile:

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Writing documentation for users is boring I know :slight_smile:
What helps are small examples that someone can copy/paste/compile and only explain the special things.
There are enough C++ tutorials on the internet, so you shouldn’t focus on that.

When I was 6 I learned to program by rewriting functioning programs until they didnt work anymore. Then Wirth came along, Kerningham and Ritchie and than Stroustrup. Their legacy can be found all over the net.

An interesting thing will be: does Haiku continue with the native widget set, does it go for Gtk or will it gravitate towards Qt? These toolkits have their own way of handling events.

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I think with Paladin and Pe and the debugger you’ve got a basic system for app development.

There’s also a “getting started in Haiku development” book which is really good, and through reading it I got my first BApplication working.

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yes exactly, the time I was trying to learn C++ was very confusing with Haiku…
It was much easier in the BeOs days… BEIDE was just working.

With Haiku there is no complete development available if you don’t know where to look for… and which CLI to use…

Better to have a small but working environment for beginner…

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yes exactly, the time I was trying to learn C++ was very confusing with Haiku…
It was much easier in the BeOs days… BEIDE was just working.

When you just not develop (you just try it only) in c++ why you asking for a better ide?

If you have c++ knowledge, use it to make this ide for haiku by your self, because some one who have enough expierience can do that only.

(so much people only asking… why not working on it? I have done 3 ides for development languages for haiku and i wish to make some for c++, but my knwledge on it is too low.)

Have you read this eBook?

https://www.haiku-os.org/development/learning_to_program_with_haiku/

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Creating an IDE that’s actually useful is quite a big project. There have been several attempts in the past - waddlesplash’s Heidi, KapiX’ Koder, Duggan’s CodePal - but none have progressed over the minimal features of Paladin so far, I think.

Currently, it’s just about as easy to use Pe as editor, an open Tracker window with your project folder (and Tracker with activated type-ahead-filtering), a Terminal and use the makefile from the makefile_engine.

This is the template Makefile: http://cgit.haiku-os.org/haiku/plain/data/develop/Makefile
It contains detailed explanations what goes where. Minimally you just edit it with:

NAME = MyAppsName
TYPE = APP
SRCS = {list all your needed .cpp files}
LIBS = be {+ all other libraries your code needs}

And then “make” in your Terminal. If there are errors/warnings, hold the ALT key and click on the reported file and it’ll open at that line in Pe.

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Ooooh, I did not know that. Does it work with jam?

I use the Sisong IDE for some of my projects. It is available on Clasqm’s repo. It has build scripts so you can make, make catkeys, run other scripts, launch the built app and whatever you want all with one key command. Otherwise I just use Pe to edit and the terminal to build like Humdinger says. I find using the makefile engine easier for my own third party apps and there are lots of examples out there of make files for you to figure out what libraries to include, etc.

Looking at source on the Haiku github will provide lots of examples. The Haiku Book: Welcome to the Haiku Book is essential for referencing Haiku specific classes, though not 100% complete. The following BeBook sections will give you the basics on application development:
The Be Book - System Overview
The Be Book - System Overview
The Be Book - System Overview

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Sure, works with anything that ouputs a path (with a colon-separated line number ).
Any path or URL opens like this when ALT-clicking it, parts of it when holding SHIFT as well, see Userguide’s Terminal topic.

hello, I am not a coder! I did not learn to code until now…:blush:
I like to compile, test , and learn only small programs by using gcc or c++ or x86_gcc2

Don’t forget you can also code in Java on Haiku; Netbeans works: http://clasquin-johnson.co.za/michel/haiku/the-hpkg-gallery/n/netbeans.html