VB-esque packages for Linux

I'm an annoying git who likes Visual Basic... to a degree, at any rate. I like the development paradigm, and I like dragging widgets around on forms rather than sitting down with graph paper and working out where things go. I don't like having to worry about creating my own callbacks, and pointers do my head in. I'm destined to never get into C or C++.

Linux has a general lack of programming environments that I can take to. Kylix is close, but costs money and I'm not into pirating when I can have something legally free instead. The free, open version is crippled to a certain degree, but is usable... but I've not tried Delphi before. (Actually, maybe I should...)

The work on Mono is interesting and C# is alleged to be wonderful, but it lacks an IDE at present. The VB support in it is somewhat more lacking, sadly.

RapidQ is okay but it's long in the tooth now, and isn't going to be updated ever again. Shame, it had promise. It didn't help it (in my mind) the IDE wasn't particularly integrated either!

Runtime Revolution would be okay if they didn't insist on the same stupid programming style that Macromedia decided was too crap to stick with five years back. And if the IDE was any good. (It sucks.)

But I've just found Gambas, which could be my saviour.

As the developer says, "Gambas is a free development environment based on a Basic interpreter with object extensions, like Visual Basic™ (but it is NOT a clone !)."

The only thing I'm not so keen on is it's KDE roots. I don't like KDE. But beggars can't be choosers, and it should function well enough under Gnome.

So... I'm going to give it a whirl, and try Kylix Open as well I think. See what's best for me and my needs.

Gambas - Gambas Almost Means Basic