RAD Basic: what is this project about? Why start it in 2019?
In 2019, there are a lot of people developing with Visual Basic 6 and they need a real alternative. The reason is that they are developing using a 20 year-old tool with no new version available.
Sure, there is VB.NET but it is another language and platform entirely. You have to migrate your project. You will lose the native performance.
You also have to learn VB.NET. For example, in this link you can read five top changes between VB6 and VB.NET: https://www.thoughtco.com/top-changes-between-vb6-and-vbnet-3424025
There are a great many active applications still being built and maintained using VB6, for example: XYplorer (a great file manager for MS Windows).
So, this project began. RAD Basic wants to bring a new IDE and compiler 100% compatible with “Visual Basic classic”. It wants to be the true VB7 that never existed.
Future of RAD Basic
Q. Is it only for supporting legacy applications?
Certainly not! Microsoft decided to throw out “Visual Basic classic” in favour of VB.NET and the .NET platform but this wasn’t the only potential solution for VB6. It could have been evolved with new and modern structures like Try…Catch, multithreading, etc. These new features could be optional while “old” structures remain for compatibility. I believe this would have been a better solution than throwing out support for thousands (possibly millions?) of applications. .
State of the project and roadmap
I was working upon this project for about 6 months. At this moment there is a working IDE and compiler. But both are very feature-limited. I am preparing a Kickstarter campaing for getting enough resources both to continue and speed up the development.
It is an exciting project. Do you want to help make it happen? Stay tuned!