13 replies to this topic

[yak3awod]

So I have been programming for a bit of time now and have been thinking that I should take it up a notch. I want to write a program that completely is executable by itself. That is, it does not need MS Visual Basic or other similar environments in order to operate. It will run directly by my clicking an icon or something in the startmenu

In you guys' opinions what would accomplishing this task entail? :cool:

Edited by yak3awod, 25 February 2011 - 03:31 PM.

[Hurricane]

Program in C maybe? ;o

[CommittedC0der]

C++ is cross-platform, and requires no environments or framework downloads, that I know of, to run.

[yak3awod]

ok but between C and C++, which one would be less cumbersome for someone that has never attempted such a project?

[Alexander]

C is very old, C++ is C with object oriented programming support and working with strings and algorithms should be much easier.

[yak3awod]

ok cool thanks!

[LuthfiHakim]

You will find Delphi with its object pascal language is not only very suitable to your taste, but also much much easier to learn and to code.

[yak3awod]

LuthfiHakim said:

You will find Delphi with its object pascal language is not only very suitable to your taste, but also much much easier to learn and to code.

Delphi huh...... I will have to check that out.
Is there any tutorial pdfs or videos sites for that language?

[LuthfiHakim]

Here is two free tutorial ebooks to learn the basics of Delphi and Pascal from Marco Canto (a very popular author of Delphi books). Visit these links (Essential Pascal and Essential Delphi) to download them. You will find some good basic to intermediate articles on this site: Delphi About. And of course don't forget to check our Delphi Tutorials section in this forum.

Actually there are many sites offering tutorials on programming with Delphi. Just google for them, you'll get tons of tutorials in no time.

For video tutorial, unfortunately I started learning Delphi long time before video tutoring become popular. So I don't know any specific site for it. But I have seen others mentioning video tutorials they've seen on YouTube.

[yak3awod]

Ok I have one last question. What is the formal name that describes this program that I want to write?: a program completely executable by itself. I ask because I don't know what to call it when I do google searches to find more information on how to do it

[LuthfiHakim]

There is actually no formal name for such executable. For windows, any kind of program that run from an executable file usually refered as Desktop Application. But it also covers those that requires visual basic runtime and .NET framework. Recently there is another term that is quite similar, i.e. Portable Applications. But this one simply requires no installation process in order to run the executable (if you are considering that latest Windows already have .NET framework built-in, then many executables that requires .NET could easily fulfill this condition).

Another term that you may use to refer this kind of executable is Self Contained Program.

[gregwarner]

What you are asking about is compiling. If you write a program in Visual Basic and just save the project files and run it within VB, this is called interpreted code. Without the interpreter (in this case, VB), your processor has no idea how to execute the instructions, which are stored as BASIC commands in a text file. A compiler is something that converts your source code into object code, or machine code to put it another way. These are binary files which contain instructions that the machine can understand. An interpreter does this on the fly, but you want to compile your program so you can distribute the executable code rather than the source.

Visual Basic should have a compiler built in, although your users will need to make sure they have the latest .NET runtime libraries installed from Microsoft. (Visual Basic compiles to something called byte code, which is half-way between interpreted and compiled code.) If you want truly hardware-executable object code without the need for any runtime libraries whatsoever, C++ is a good place to start learning. There's an excellent C/C++ compiler for Windows called Dev-C++, It's distributed by Bloodshed. A quick Google search will send you in the right direction.