gambas

Gambas is a free and open-source rapid application development environment for Linux and other Unix-like systems, combining a programming language, an integrated development environment, and a set of libraries. The project aims to provide an approachable BASIC-like language with object-oriented and event-driven features, enabling the creation of graphical user interfaces, database applications, and networked programs, using native Linux resources.

The Gambas language is inspired by Visual Basic and is designed to be easy to learn for programmers familiar with BASIC. It supports classes, inheritance, interfaces, and event handling, and provides development constructs common to RAD tools, including form designers, components, and a visual designer. Applications are written in Gambas and compiled to native executables while relying on a Gambas runtime library.

The development environment, Gambas Studio, includes an IDE with a form designer, code editor, debugger, and project manager. It provides a large standard library and modules for database connectivity (such as ODBC, SQLite, MySQL, PostgreSQL), web service interaction, networking, and multimedia. Distribution packaging is available for major Linux distributions; Gambas is typically installed via package managers and can be extended with additional components.

History and licensing: The Gambas project began in the late 1990s by Benoît Minisini. It is released under the GNU General Public License and is maintained by a community of volunteers. It is used by hobbyists, educators, and small businesses to build desktop GUI applications and administrative tools on Linux.