FreeBasic

[José Roca]

Then what about this:

Code: [Select]

#INCLUDE ONCE "Afx/CWindow.inc"

DIM pWindow AS CWindow
pWindow.Create(NULL, "CWindow with a label control")
' // Add a label control
pWindow.AddControl("Label", , 101, "Hello World", 100, 50, 150, 23)
' // Dispatch Windows messages
pWindow.DoEvents(SW_NORMAL)


[JRS]

That actually looks like BASIC.

Nice!

[JRS]

Your introduction of templates via WinFBE is a tremendous help and it was a very good progress
to be able to translate so many PB programs to FB in such a short time.

Have you informed your boss that your new 64 bit Windows direction is based on transportation with no one behind the wheel? Is your company paying you based on results or giving you a free hand to play?

What if something happen to you, (sick, quit, ...) how would your boss replace you with a FB direction?

My advice is to join Patrice's forum and observe how he took his PB effort to C++.

[JRS]

What is FreeBasic's greatest weaknesses? If a fork evolved, what would you change going forward?

[jack]

John
what is it with you?
why your obsession to put down FreeBasic or for that matter PowerBasic?

[JRS]

I'm not putting either abandoned BASIC compiler down. I'm assisting in finding options so people have somewhere to go.

C++ and for the brave O2 are possible options. Languages die off every day.

[José Roca]

No language is dead until nobody speaks it. Currently, FreeBasic has many more users and collaborators than Script Basic or O2.

[JRS]

Your comments assume we are all hobby programmers. I program for a living and the customer assumes I will use tools that are maintainable.

[José Roca]

We have already told you that FreeBasic is being maintained, but you must be deaf.

See: https://github.com/freebasic/fbc/commits/master

[JRS]

We were also told by Drake that PowerBASIC will live on and is actively being developed. What does your crystal ball say about FreeBasic?

[José Roca]

Nobody knows the future. Currently, it suits my needs.

[JRS]

I'm betting on Charles and O2 to be the answer to a 32/64 bit BASIC Windows compiler. If a product / project has no defined plans for the future, why would someone invest in that?

FreeBasic has many more users and collaborators than Script Basic or O2.

Script BASIC is used commercially in embedded BACNet controllers by two major manufactures. One since 2003. It is burned into firmware that would mean trashing the boards if there was a flaw in the BASIC.

I had a client in New Zealand that was installing a solar power converter at a remote high end resort. The problem was that the BACnet controller running Script BASIC needed a MD5 function to access the power converter's API.   Script BASIC had no access to the OS (POSIX) to shell to for an external MD5 utility.

Charles wrote a MD5 function for the ARM processor in Script BASIC.    He installed the code and tested it on the live remote controller via a satellite Internet connection. 

[Aurel]

I must say something... 
First :
Free Basic is very good basic compiler and enough old for many general purposes.
From the beginning he is created to replace qbasic as console compiler and that is not enough.
Work with FB is not very much user friendly..even with few well known editors created trough time.
Also there is no official editor included into FB package.
Documentation is little bit complex and is not simple enough for newbies.
It was popular few years back but from todays point of view is not.
More than half of members gone ( like on many other basic forums) .
Jose have a right when says that FB still have more users than sb or o2
that is the fact
I only can bet in one two things about o2.
is is more flexibile and simplier to use than fb
Oxygen - OOP is excellent and 10 times better than in any other programming language.
One big problem is how to attract younger population to BASIC?
You cannot do that with complex things(way of programming).

[José Roca]

Hoping that all the other Basic compilers will disappear as a way to attract O2 users is illusory. The way is to release a stable beta version and, above all, write good documentation. Without documentation, nobody is going to do serious work with O2.

> One big problem is how to attract younger population to BASIC?

John doesn't like beginners. He kicks them from the forum at the speed of light.

[JRS]

John doesn't like beginners. He kicks them from the forum at the speed of light.

John doesn't like lazy people users. Newbies are welcome.