98 lines
3.1 KiB
ReStructuredText
98 lines
3.1 KiB
ReStructuredText
.. _whysimba:
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Why Simba?
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==========
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So why would you use Simba?
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For several reasons. Number one is probably the active community combined with
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the open-mindedness of the Simba developers.
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Free
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~~~~
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Simba is, and always will be free.
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It is free as in Free Beer **and** Freedom.
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Simba is 100% free to use. In fact, we welcome you to share it with the
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rest of the world.
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The source code to the program is freely available, under the GPL (v3) license.
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.. note::
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The source code allows everyone to see how the program actually
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works. Most developers choose not to share their source code and therefore
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decide to withhold knowledge. The Simba developers highly disagree with
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this mentality and will fight for a world with free knowledge for
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everyone. "Closed Source" as not sharing source code is called, is holding
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back innovation and research in the world.
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Extensible
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~~~~~~~~~~
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Simba supports both plug-ins in binary format as well as extensions written
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in the Simba programming language (which is Pascal-based).
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This way one can easily extend Simba. See :ref:`writing-simba-extensions`
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Reliable
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~~~~~~~~
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Simba is actively maintained by a team of knowledgeable programmers.
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We as a team do our best to make Simba into a quality product.
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However this does not guarantee a bug free program.
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(Bug free programs don't exist)
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Should you encounter a bug, please consider sending a bug report so we can
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try to resolve the issue: :ref:`bugreport`.
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Cross Platform
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Simba has been written with freedom in mind and believes Simba
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should not be limited to one platform, as that limits its users
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to one platform as well.
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Currently the supported platforms are Windows and Linux with attempts
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being made to port it to OSX (it may run on OSX if you install X11).
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Even though we try hard to make Simba bug-free on all platforms,
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some issues remain. The biggest issue is the interpreter that
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executes your program. It is an external component and does not
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play too well on Linux. Hopefully this will be improved upon soon.
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There are plans on supporting interpreter for alternative languages such as
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Python, these would largely resolve the current problems with the PascalScript
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interpreter on Linux/Mac.
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Fast
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~~~~
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The Simba developers have designed and written Simba with speed in mind.
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It is important to understand, however, that premature optimization usually
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ends up hurting development by introducing bugs and other forms of
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instability. Simba attempts to find a middle-ground and has sacrificed some
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speed for readability and maintainability, but is overall still quite fast.
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Open Minded
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~~~~~~~~~~~
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Open minded. We appreciate your help, ideas and criticism!
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Debug Friendly
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Simba aims to be debug friendly. It will show you where your errors are during
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compilation, and when you are running scripts Simba will point out where you are
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passing invalid arguments. The action Simba takes when this happens is
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configurable. (It can issue a warning and continue, or simply terminate
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the script)
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Well Documented
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Simba is well documented. (You're looking the documentation right now...)
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There is still a lot left to document though.
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