I have been working with NS Basic App Studio for two years, since launch.
My thoughts are this:-
If you plan to do any kind of development which you want to look professional then forget App Studio. NS Basic App Studio has some major failings, number one on the list being documentation. The documentation supplied with App Studio is truly appalling, covering basic commands and functions only, and even then, not fully. The moment you want to dig deeper there is no help for you and even the writers of App Studio say "Search the Internet for answers". This makes App Studio a 'development' system for amateurs.
If your intention is to develop anything that remotely resembles a professional application then I am very sorry to say you will have to use something else.
I speak as a professional developer of 30 years experience, having developed on all sorts of platforms. We recently completed a project (not the way we wanted to due to the limitations) using NS Basic App Studio and it took a whole year to make. The equivalent in almost any other environment would have taken a matter of weeks. There were times when my team and I wanted to blow our brains out in frustration, mainly with the woeful documentation and zero support offered by NS Basic.
NS Basic bill App Studio as a Visual Basic-like environment. Do you remember the days when IBM clone-makers were saying that their machines were compatible to the IBM PC and it turned out they meant they both use a 5amp fuse in the plug? Well that is how App Studio is to Visual Basic. Whilst App Studio uses the BASIC language, it is so far removed from VB when you start wanting to do anything interesting that it makes the comment "Visua Basic-like" a mockery at best and misleading at worst.
There are many fanboys of App Studio, but don't be misled. The product is not at a fit state yet to be used for any kind of professional development. You will end up going insane. From the advancements I have seen the product make since launch (two years now) I would guesstimate that it will take NS Basic another five years to create a development environment that is suitable for professional developers.
NS Basic App Studio could be a good product, however with so many fundamental flaws, which become apparent only after you have gone through the very basics, you start entering a nighmare world.
I hope this post helps prospective developers in making a choice about their development environment.
