Am I missing out. I haven’t downloaded or tried the MBS plug ins. I spend a lot of time using declares and making custom controls and if I ever ask a query on the forums someone quite often points me in the direction of the MBS plug ins.
Does everyone have them? Am I wasting a lot of valuable time developing stuff which could be available in the MBS plug ins?
Many people are using the MBS plugins.
Not cheap but it has a high value for money imo
A fair number of the MBS functions are wrappers around things you could declare to if you wanted to spend the time. On OS X, macoslib has a good chunk of similar wrappers, with the difference bing that macoslib is open source.
You have to decide if it adds value for you. I have the plugins and use them a lot on Windows and Mac after deciding a lot was of use for me. I held out for a while but I decided I wasn’t going to re-invent the wheel, notably when it came to Quicktime and Lion features.
It’s a monster of a product, grown quickly and I find the documentation a PITA, but by burrowing I can find what I want. Half the time I don’t realize the feature I want is already there 
Well, at the conferences if you ask who uses our plugins, you likely see 80% of the hands go up.
Over more than 12 years now we do consulting and as a side project started writing plugins. So basically any problem you may run into could be solved already with a plugin function.
Take a day off, load the plugins and check the 1500 examples. Maybe you can use something.
Many people use them, they are a very robust library of tools. But the trade-off is you’re tied to them for the foreseeable future. It makes creating transportable code more difficult. For example, I can’t just send you a snippet of code without the “requires MBS plugins” caveat. That’s why I don’t personally use them, but I have nothing against them.
Basically, you need to decide if that coupling is worth it to you or not.
Problem with plugins is using someone else’s code and being dependent on that
code. You learn nothing from using the plugin and are tied to it and future upgrades.
If you want to get good at programming, keep away from plugins.
WOW! Finally people who actually agree with my outlook on plugins! (Thom McGrath / George Bella)
and a least it was said “Many people” and not “Most people”
[quote=17924:@George Balla]Problem with plugins is using someone else’s code and being dependent on that
code. You learn nothing from using the plugin and are tied to it and future upgrades.
If you want to get good at programming, keep away from plugins.[/quote]
I don’t think that’s really fair. I don’t see how being dependent on MBS plugins is any worse than being dependent on Xojo. Xojo is closed source and wrappers/functions around many OS libraries so the same logic applies.
If there are enough functions you could use where the time savings outweighs the cost then its a simple decision.
If you truly care about ‘being a good programmer’ and not being dependent you should try something in the free software world. That being said, you’ll find you are always dependent on someone or something.
George/Thom/Dave - I must say I agree with you all. I just wondered if I was wasting time. I have always done my own coding in RB, Xojo andI did in VB. It just seems that every time I write a query on the forum someone replies with “Just use the MBSFixItAll plug in”.
I do prefer writing my own code to using plug ins etc. I was just interested what others are doing.
MacOSLib and The Windows Functionality Suite are very useful and are open sourced.
You can get a lot from them.
That is a bit short minded to say the least. Not sure why you measure skills with using plugins.
I use them sparingly and find they add to my productivity. Not nearly as much as they could, though. To reiterate what Richard said, the documentation is a complete PITA in need of a serious overhaul. For simple things it feels as though I spend as much time wading through the docs just trying to figure out if the functionality I need is even in the plugins as I would have spent just implementing it myself. Seriously… the online documentation for a given class often doesn’t even list the methods in alphabetical order.
That said, I still think my productivity is increased by using them. In the end it’s about economics. When you’re programming for passion, you’d rarely touch a plugin… when you are programming in order to ship product out the door, sometimes the plugins are a good fit; at least for version 1.x.
[quote=17929:@Norman Palardy]MacOSLib and The Windows Functionality Suite are very useful and are open sourced.
You can get a lot from them.[/quote]
Is MacOSLib mostly carbon declares? If so Is that an issue with Cocoa and potentially a big issues over time?
“A good developer” (I hate the term programmer) uses available tools (of which some might consider MBS to be). but they also are acutely aware of scalablity, maintainability, readabiltiy …
If you devise your own solutions, then you become less and less dependent on others, and my find that others become more and more dependant on you.
If MBS were open-source… my attiude would be different… because I could LEARN from them… but since they are not, they are (to me) a “one trick pony”… ok… 15,000 one-trick ponies.
[quote=17933:@Dave S]“A good developer” (I hate the term programmer) uses available tools (of which some might consider MBS to be). but they also are acutely aware of scalablity, maintainability, readabiltiy …
If you devise your own solutions, then you become less and less dependent on others, and my find that others become more and more dependant on you.
If MBS were open-source… my attiude would be different… because I could LEARN from them… but since they are not, they are (to me) a “one trick pony”… ok… 15,000 one-trick ponies.[/quote]
I understand your point on this completely although I don’t feel the same way. However I can’t fathom how plugins are OUT but Xojo is IN for you.
[quote=17929:@Norman Palardy]MacOSLib and The Windows Functionality Suite are very useful and are open sourced.
You can get a lot from them.[/quote]
Norman, yes I am currently using MacOS Lib. The problem I am having with MacOs Lib is that I am creating a control for Xojo which I want to encrypt and hopefully sell. I want to use a couple of classes from MacOsLib in my control but dont want the end user to have to have MacOsLib in their project when they use my control. Ok, so I need to extract the bits of MacOsLib I use on my control and have them as classes inside my control. Thing is for instance I am using NSSearchField whose super is NSObject etc etc. What is the easiest was of finding out all the dependancies?
[quote=17934:@Phillip Zedalis]
Dave S “A good developer” (I hate the term programmer) uses available tools (of which some might consider MBS to be). but they also are acutely aware of scalablity, maintainability, readabiltiy …
If you devise your own solutions, then you become less and less dependent on others, and my find that others become more and more dependant on you.
If MBS were open-source… my attiude would be different… because I could LEARN from them… but since they are not, they are (to me) a “one trick pony”… ok… 15,000 one-trick ponies.
I understand your point on this completely although I don’t feel the same way. However I can’t fathom how plugins are OUT but Xojo is IN for you.[/quote]
Phill, I get him. Its like saying i’d rather modify my car myself (write my own code) rather than getting a garage to mod it (MBS Plug Ins). Doesn’t mean I should build the car myself (Xojo).
Blimey - Some analogy ha ha
[quote=17937:@Mike Charlesworth]Phill, I get him. Its like saying i’d rather modify my car myself (write my own code) rather than getting a garage to mod it (MBS Plug Ins). Doesn’t mean I should build the car myself (Xojo).
Blimey - Some analogy ha ha[/quote]
You still use pre-fabbed parts when you mod it.
Ok… this discussion has move to the realm of the ludicrious now…
Lets just all agree to disagree. Those of you who like/want/need plugins… be my guest…
but allow the rest of us to have the option of not using/liking or wanting them