For most REALbasic users this change won't require much, if any, work. When we ship a 64 bit native version of REALbasic, integers will be 64 bits rather than 32 bits. That doesn't mean much to most of you. For those of you that are doing bit manipulation and using certain classes, it will most likely mean your code will need to be updated.
Today you have the ability to specify that you want an integer that is 32 bits or 64 bits. Rather than using Integer, you can use Int32 to specify a 32 bit integer. If you are reading and/or writing integers using the MemoryBlock or BinaryStream classes, use the methods provided in those classes to read/write 32 bit integers if you are using the regular Integer methods today.
If you are doing integer bitwise operations or are using integers with binarystreams or memoryblocks, you can update your code today so it will continue to function properly once we provide the ability to compile your project as a 64 bit native application.
64 bit is something we will be addressing to allow your applications to be 64 bit native. I don't have a timeframe to announce just yet. However, those of you that are depending on 32 bit integers (and if you are, you know you are) can update your code now so you won't have any hiccups when compiling 64 bit native applications arrives.
8 comments:
I can see how it will matter for bit twiddling, and I can see that using integer vs int32 in structures, declares, pointers and MemoryBlocks will matter, but will other classes will be affected?
AFAIK all framework integer properties are documented as integer and so will become int64s , but besides using more memory, that should not change anything on our end, correct?
BTW will RB become exclusively 64 bit or will it a build option?
It will be quite a while before all 32 machines are out of service...
And while on the consumer it's true that little software is bought for older machines, in-house developers in companies will need to write apps that can run on them.
Many business don't take old hardware out of service when it can still be used... particularly in places like laboratories when they don't are not general use machines .
At my last job for example I wrote RB apps that had to run on Win2K machines that were connected to equipment relatively recently.
- Karen
Yes, it will be an option. 32 bit computers will be around for a long time.
You guys are doing a fantastic job! After the report writer comes out I can die a happy man. :-)
Joseph Claeys
Any updates on 64-bit time frames? Many hardware manufacturers are "pushing" 64-bit Windows OS's on our clients, especially servers, and we need to get our product up to 64-bit as soon as possible.
Thanks
Not at this time. It's a HUGE job and we have bigger fish to fry at the moment. But we recognize that it's something we are going to have to address in the future.
With the rapid pace of how systems are moving to 64-bit, I's say that there are few more important fish to fry than that.
RB is my choice for cross platform development. But with RB the only player in town that hasn't gone 64-bit yet, there's little incentive to stick with it when Visual Studio's got a stable Mono framework running in 64-bit Linux.
I'll be bold enough to state that there is o way that the lingering 64-bit issue is already a big problem for RB at this time, especially with the release of Visual Studio 2010.
I strongly recommend not waiting until the industry FORCES you to go with 64-bit. I'm an example of a customer you DONT have because of this.
because of 64-bit Mono, RB no longer has the Windows/Linux advantage. Vistual Studio does - in a BIG way.
While everyone else out there is scrambling to meet the 64-bit demand, I'm sure the last thing your customers want to hear from their dev tools vendor is "sorry, 64-bit just isn't a priority".
That's how to lose customers.
I'm going to have to agree with Bob, 64 bit is in huge demand by users and ignore 64 bit is a very unwise choice.
We understand that 64 bit is important and we are going to address. Having said that, I would like to better understand why 64 bit is important to you and your customers. The primary advantage to 64 bit is the ability to address large amount of RAM. So if you are writing an application that is extremely RAM hungry, 64 bit would be important.
64 bit support is important. I'm not debating that. But I'm trying to understand better the various reasons customers are asking for it.
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