Where is O2?

[JRS]

Charles,

Can you give us your official status on the state of Oxygen Basic at this time?

Would you recommend O2 being used in a mission critical project?

What type of BASIC user/developer could assist with the project best and help move it along?

Do you feel catering to newbie BASIC users provides a benefit or distraction in your efforts to obtain a production stable compiler?

[Charles Pegge]

Hi John,

Well, the high end of alpha maybe. Testing 1200 examples exposed 6 minor bugs, and induced 1 minor mod. The core function set has been stable for a few years now, and most of the recent development has been in macros. I'm currently working on the first generation self-compiled o2 which can now produce small binaries, and JIT. Producing a second-generation o2 would definitely mark the end of the alpha phase.

This project is a full-time job. Not many hours to spare for side-tracking. So everything I do assists the project in some way, including newbie support.

Does anyone here like writing manuals?

[JRS]

Does anyone here like writing manuals?

There is only one person I know of that is qualified and would do O2 documentation justice and that is José Roca.

I would vote for Mike to write the O2 developer docs.

[Patrice Terrier]

Just my personnal opinion...

I think that without a real business structure and a dedicated team, the chance for a late coming compiler to surface from the underground is equal to null.

ZALE, was just one exception, but time of a single man working in his garage is over since the 80's.

Ask yourself, what is the company that would invest time on a vapor ware nowdays ?

The only target is the hobby one, but nobody can do a living from it.

However advanced programming could be seen as a real artwork, and if you were living in Japan then you would have a chance to be paid to transmit your knowledge under the status of "Living National Treasure" to teach a handfull of {talented} disciples, and then be able to perpetuate your knowledge for the young generation.

[edcronos]

I sort of agree with the Patrice Terrier.
but I find the basic language easier and more logical, and it only had no market because it was compared to something just for the basics.
perhaps it has some future point if it is directed at segments that have somehow become orphans at some point.
or if it attracts the attention of newcomers in an intuitive way in the creation of applications where the ease in logic generates ease of learning and productivity, it would certainly attract the attention of large companies

and yes, as a complete amateur in programming I miss a manual
without speaking that with the freest syntax, also brought a certain complexity

[JRS]

Patrice is correct if you're writing a commercial application like his set of graphic tools. Where BASIC comes in handy is for those one off projects done specifically for a client that you end up supporting and enhancing.

That is still a huge market VB6 once owned.

[Aurel]

I think that no one of you can feel the energy of o2.
everything else are pure speculations...

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Then probably some one of you two -- Aurel or Zlatko -- can feel the burning heat of O2 and will be able to give us a hand with help manuals, include files, or developer docs without any further speculations?

[edcronos]

something I miss is about the structure to be programmed
has, macro, sub, modulo, as it is the Scope of them and of the Variables, the calls
has a lot of examples, but the varied syntax ends up confusing, and the majority is complex for those who are starting
it took me a while to declare an array with size indicated by a variable

I can set up small functions, but I can not get something more structured even though I have only basic commands

[Aurel]

able to give us a hand with help manuals, include files, or developer docs without any further speculations?

Yo Mike 
Yes i can but currently I have no time for that .
By the way i have some docs about awinh but not general thing in o2
but i will see..

[Arnold]

The contribution of Laurent led me to this link:
http://users.freebasic-portal.de/

I do not know how this will work, but it looks very interesting.

There are some more interesting links:
http://www.rapideuphoria.com/
http://www.rapideuphoria.com/archive.htm
(Search does not work at the moment but calling the categories does work).

There is also this link about CGI(Web) Applications:
http://www.rapideuphoria.com/cgi.htm

I also found these links:
https://smallbasic.github.io/
https://smallbasic.github.io/pages/samples.html

If something like above is possible for user contributions to Oxygenbasic, I think it would make sense to donate for web hosting services. But I cannot imagine that Charles would have survived the last years if he had been dependant only on the development of Oxygenbasic.

Roland

[JRS]

The use of the cgi-bin directory to create dynamic web content is older than dirt and rarely used anymore. Most browsers today discourage its use or refuse to support it altogether.

I like SmallBasic's documentation direction on github. We should expand on Charles's existing github O2 repository adding a similar documentation format until the compiler is more defined and stable.

[edcronos]

Thank you Charles,
I had tried but gave error on the line, and thought I did not have the Redim
  I also did not see in the examples I encountered with arrays, and since I was focused on the vba array operation I did not focus much on it
is what I miss in O2 a more comprehensive explanation of the basics, ALSO I see in the examples FUNCTIONS not exposed in the manual,


even those who turn to you with doubts usually do not put the resolution of the case, leaving the newbies with even more doubts

about the long and the int, it's because my excel is 32bit, the int of O2 seems to me to be sufficient in that case
I believe I can use Vba LongPtr,

then I analyze the forms of communication between vba and O2

and I ask the freedom to open a topic for my adventures with O2 in the VBA, as I am a novice, maybe expose in my attempts, answers to other novices,

[Mike Lobanovsky]

... I ask the freedom to open a topic for my adventures with O2 in the VBA ...

By all means, you're welcome to do so here on this Problems & Solutions board.

[JRS]

Millions of programmers have been spoiled by Visual Basic.

Those VB programmers didn't write commercial solutions with VB for the most part. Most applications were specific to a company that hired the programmer to write it.