[Jabaco] JaCOB and WScript.Network

I wonder about myself sometimes. Am I sane? For instance, I’ve taken recently to learning and developing with Jabaco. This would seem from one angle, good, and from another, daft. 

Jabaco is a simple programming language with a Visual Basic like syntax. Jabaco enables you to create powerful software for all Java supported operating systems.

So there you have it: a VB6-alike (more or less) syntax targeting the JVM. In my experience, people bagging VB syntax are in the majority. People bagging Java aren’t infrequent either. And I know Java about as well as I know Babylonia Cuneiform.

That said, it’s been a bit of fun figuring things out in Jabaco, and discovering just how effectively one can hook into the Java subsystem.

The code below demonstrates The JACOB Project: A JAva-COM Bridge talking to WScript.Network. Comments are a bit sparse, but VB folk should be able to figure it out quick enough.

Public Sub main(ByJava args() As String)
   Dim myArgs() As String
   myArgs = args
   Dim oShell As ActiveXComponent
   'ActiveXComponent is exported by JACOB and referenced in the IDE
   '(yes, there’s an IDE, and it’s pretty good too) 
   Set oShell = New ActiveXComponent("WScript.Network")
   Dim a As String
   Dim b As String
   Dim c As String
   Dim dShell As Dispatch
   'Dispatch also part of JACOB. Nice that it uses the standard jargon
   Set dShell = oShell.getObject()
   a = Dispatch.call(dShell,"UserDomain")
   b = Dispatch.call(dShell,"ComputerName")
   c = Dispatch.call(dShell,"UserName")
   MsgBox (a & ", " & b & ", " & c)
   comthread.Release()
End Sub

The IDE makes possible ‘compiling’ to an EXE. The code above compiles to about 400K. Of course, the presence of a JRE is implied. And it runs, nicely.

I think I’ll be spending more time with Jabaco. It’s got a lot of promise, especially for the VB-deranged like me.

© Copyright Bruce M. Axtens, 2009.