Interview: George Henne of NSBasic

Earlier this month NS Basic announced the release of a new version of their BASIC IDE called NS Basic/App Studio that supports development for iOS devices. This program promises to significantly reduce the learning curve that is normally associated with developing applications for iPhone and iPad devices. NS Basic has a rich history of producing tools for hobbyists and professional developers targeting multiple mobile platforms including Newton, Palm OS, Windows CE, and now iOS and Android. As soon as we heard the news, we reached out to their founder and President, George Henne and asked him the following questions:

What inspired you to get into building tools that targeted mobile
device developers?

It was many years ago, back in the Newton days. I had just won the
programming contest at the first Newton Developer’s conference. My prize
was a T shirt with an icon of a C:\ prompt on it. It inspired me and the
Vollum brothers to write a working DOS shell for the Newton OS. It was
working by dawn: it even made the proper drive reset sounds as it
started up. We kept its origins secret for quite a while.

I was joking with a magazine editor about it. We were having a good
laugh over how some of the commands which were too much work to
implement, responded simply “Abort, Retry, Fail”, including “Basic”. But
then it hit me: Basic, on mobile devices, was not a joke. The tools that
were available for the Newton were great for the pros that had a year to
master them: not so useful for the guy working in the IT department that
needed to get a business app working or for someone working on his own.
I got to work.

Basic for the Newton was a big success, as was NS Basic/Palm and NS Basic/CE.

Can you describe some of the challenges that you have experienced over
the years building development tools for Apple’s Mobile products (NSBasic
Newton to iPhone/iPad)?

Memory and CPU speed are far more constrained than on the desktop. We
have a saying here, “Plunder the ROM!”. We find out what’s built into
the OS and make as much use of that as possible. It makes up for a lot.

For the iPhone and iPad, we got really excited when we realized the full
implications of JavaScript + HTML5 + WebKit. There is an incredible
amount of functionality tied up in those.

When we looked closely at JavaScript, we were most surprised at its
speed: NS Basic/App Studio is the fastest Basic we have ever produced by
a long shot.

Can you tell us some of the features that you are most excited about
for iPhone/iPad developers? What do you think will really compel people
to use NSBasic for iPhone/iPad development?

It’s back to our roots: coming up with something that has a short,
gentle learning curve. We have implemented virtually all of VBScript,
which is a large subset of Visual Basic. VB programmers can start
programming right away, and can even copy and paste chunks of code. The
screen controls, like commandbuttons and checkboxes, are drawn using
HTML and CSS, so they have a very modern look and feel.

We also made it easy to deploy and test: within 3 days of the product’s
release, people reported that they had working applications.

Do you think Apple should be more open to other development tools (mono
and other environments)? Do you think that the Android is benefiting from
Apple’s policies at all?

It’s easy to slam them for their policies, but it’s not always right.
Apple has created a software marketplace with high standards: much
better than a lot of the dreck you see elsewhere. Apple’s reputation is
built on the quality of its products: I can understand their desire to
see software applications built to the same standards.

Do you personally use an iPhone or iPad? If not, what mobile hardware
do you use?

I’ve owned every model of iPhone and iPad as my personal go to device.
Right now, I have an iPhone 4 and an iPad.

What mobile applications do you use or find most interesting (personal
productivity, games)? What are 2 or 3 of your favorite mobile
applications?

Nothing interesting, I’m afraid. Being able to check email anytime makes
it easier to keep playing with the kids instead running up to the office.

What do you think the future holds for iPhone/iPad users? Do you think
the platform will continue to expand? Do you foresee any challenges?

I think iOS will continue to be a moving target. I think Android are the
only ones who have a chance of keeping up. Apple has a huge built in
advantage with the iTunes store: it will be tough for anyone to
duplicate that.

If you were granted 30 minutes with Steve Jobs to chat about mobile
development tools, what would you most want to talk with him about?

I’ve been friends with Steve Wozniak for 15 years, I’ve chatted with
Bill Gates, but I have never met Steve Jobs in person. I think I’d
evangelize him on how NS Basic/App Studio could bring the wonder of
programming mobile devices to literally millions of developers. I’d talk
about teaching programming. I’d show him places where a few changes in
Safari could add lots of possibilities. I would make him go through the
process of submitting an app. And I’d tell him about the grandmother who
took up programming on iOS [with NS Basic] because it’s more fun than crochet.

Can you tell us if you have tested your latest development IDE with
CrossOver or Parallels so that Mac users can also develop apps using your
tools? If not, do you need any volunteers to help you test?

We’re all big Mac fans here. Running on Parallels was an essential
feature from day 1, just so we could use it ourselves.

Have you ever considered developing a compiler or programming
environment for Macs (where the IDE would run natively)? If not, why not
are there additional challenges?

A Mac native version is not out of the question, but there are other
things we need to add to the product first.

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