PluriBASIC

[JRS]

I would probably pay more if I didn't hate everything about PowerBasic. My interest is to revive old PB code submitted by talented programmers and hope in the end it was worth the effort
 
Where you are going to make the big bucks is companies that are stuck with software written in PB but don't want to start over from scratch. The subscription folks are paying/free beta testers depending how serious they are.

Let's hope your end goal is to eliminate PB out of the equation.

[Brian Alvarez]

 Im sorry to dissapoint you John, that is not my end goal. But hopefully i can help somehow other programmers with a need to port their applications.

[JRS]

So you wish to be a bridge to the dead?

Make PB PluriBASIC.

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Hi there Brian,

I acknowledge the extra mile you walked to throw in your response though I don't quite appreciate your choosing me for a target of all that verbiage. I'm having a strong impression you forget, or still don't quite realize, who you're talking to. I am not another rank and file amateur hobbying on obscure BASIC dialect exploration at my leisure time, but rather a BASIC/C/asm compiler developer with at least 15 years of practical experience in that domain. Let me point to you once again just in case you don't realize it, that all your translation headaches that took you 4 years to (hopefully mostly) resolve used to be but mere subitems in the projects I was implementing and putting to public use in those one and a half decades.

So what you are attempting to do now is very likely what I was doing when you still attended your secondary school. Thus, there's not any chance for your assumptions to be true that I might not have known what I was talking about in my response to your

$ 79.99 ... and an annual subscription of 40. What do you think?
... What do you guys think? Should i release it like this?

plea.

So what was wrong with my saying you attempt quoting your PB6 higher than PB? Classic PB goes at $75, you quote your unsupported alpha PB6 at $80. Standard PB goes at $100 overall, you quote your supported alpha at $80+$40 per annum=$120 minimum. So what's wrong with my statement, really?

You got my response as straight-forward and exhaustive as it only could be. You asked for it -- you got it.

In fact, your message was tl;dr for me: you got the wrong number, mister. But as a moderator, I'll still keep it in place where it is just for the sake of would-be users, if any, to see how much hope, wishful thinking and pure emotion you're putting in what should instead be nothing personal, just business. Though I'll stress again that a mike you were addressing there should've rather been a John Doe namereck.

But don't you ever dare question again my proficiency in what I'm doing or saying publicly here or elsewhere, or you'll risk seeing me accept that challenge of yours if only, as I said, "out of sheer sporting interest".

[Brian Alvarez]

So you wish to be a bridge to the dead?

Make PB PluriBASIC.

 Not really John. I like PowerBASIC, i would like to extend
upon it as my customers need, but im not trying to take its customer
base, but to offer them an extra tool. Everybody wins.

I acknowledge the extra mile you walked to throw in your response though I don't quite appreciate your choosing me for a target of all that verbiage. I'm having a strong impression you forget, or still don't quite realize, who you're talking to. I am not another rank and file amateur hobbying on obscure BASIC dialect exploration at my leisure time, but rather a BASIC/C/asm compiler developer with at least 15 years of practical experience in that domain. Let me point to you once again just in case you don't realize it, that all your translation headaches that took you 4 years to (hopefully mostly) resolve used to be but mere subitems in the projects I was implementing and putting to public use in those one and a half decades.

 Thats impressive. Nice. Well if my post would not have been TLDR for you perhaps you would not have taken it as a "target for verbiage". I Dont believe that you are jealous... i said "dont make me believe it [when others say it]". I even said i think you could do it as well, and I offered my help to you. So, what is the problem? I know you have more knowledge than me in some areas, but i think its quite possible that i have more knowledge and experience than you in some others. So, i would like also some credit for it. Im not a newbie you know?

So what you are attempting to do now is very likely what I was doing when you still attended your secondary school. Thus, there's not any chance for your assumptions to be true that I might not have known what I was talking about in my response to your

$ 79.99 ... and an annual subscription of 40. What do you think?
... What do you guys think? Should i release it like this?

plea.

 Fair enough. I wrote a TLDR paragraph here but i dont think you could understand it. Not because a lack of intelligence (your intelligence is not being questioned right now), but because my situation is completely unknown for you. May I know your age?

But don't you ever dare question again my proficiency in what I'm doing or saying publicly here or elsewhere, or you'll risk seeing me accept that challenge of yours if only, as I said, "out of sheer sporting interest".

 Again?... Well, i neved questioned your "proficiency", As i said, i believe you are quite capable of doing it... But to be honest im tempted to do it just because i would like to see it. I would like to see a tool made by you. That would be cool! As i said, i will be your first customer. When is this projected for? $ 49.99.. right? It will be awesome! Please do! (no offense).

[Aurel]

for the difference
I AM
amateur hobbying & wanna-be developer on obscure(Y) BASIC dialect exploration at my leisure time
 
good luck !

[Patrice Terrier]

Brian

I have been a long time third party addon provider for PowerBASIC, since the time of PBDK and DolceVita that i wrote with my friend Philippe Monteil.

WinLIFT and GDImage have never been a big success in the PowerBASIC community compared to the WinDev market.
This is because of the scale of their respective markets, and mostly because PowerBASIC is aimed to people who prefer to reinvent the wheel rather than buying one already done.

There is no way to make a living from a product that has no future.

Every attempt to revival PowerBASIC is a waste of time in my opinion, except for the dinosaurus generation.
I know what i am speaking about, because i am one of them

[Chris Boss]

Brian,

Pluri-Basic will fall or stand on its own merits. One of the first things I learned years ago was "don't worry about what others think is best for your product". Everybody has an opinion. What matters is how you view your software and what goals you have for it. Look at a language like Python. It wasn't designed from the beginning to be the next big hit in programming languages. It was an inhouse project by its developer to solve a problem and hopefully make them more productive. Later when released as open source it caught on and others promoted it. Now look at its popularity today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0Aq44Pze-w

If software is developed with good concepts and quality work for whatever reasons, once it is used by others it will stand on its own merits. If the concept is good it just may become a successful product.

I didn't design my EZGUI engine to be the next big successful money maker. I originally designed it for myself. Eventually I turned it into a commercial product and while not the most successful product in the world, it did alright and paid for the time I spent on it. True the Powerbasic market has nearly died, but Powerbasic continues to be a viable tool even years after the passing of Bob Zale its creator. EZGUI suffered because of Powerbasics decline too, but it still is a powerful tool which I am currently using once again inhouse for my own development and for custom work for clients. Much of the intellectual property in EZGUI is quite unique and it provides me powerful tools to build other projects. My Visual Designer work is something few have imitate and I have plans on using that code base to build Visual Designers for other programming languages.

The point is, that don't let the goals of others dictate your own plans. True, no plan is guaranteed to succeed. But also no plan is guaranteed to fail either.

I like the concept of Pluri-Basic, especially that it is not a standalone language in of itself, but a parser front-end that can use a variety of languages on the backend. This actually makes it more powerful. You might design it to use a number of backends, but when it hits the market you may find that only one or two of them are used a lot. By being willing to adjust and learn from experience, you may find certain features of PluriBasic are more popular and you might change directions in development as you go. But you won't know until you start selling it.

It is not wrong or immoral to want to earn something from ones efforts in writing software. With all the buzz today about "Open Source", I think programmers have gotten spoiled and expect everything for free. But there is a place for proprietary software. Open Source is fraught with many of its own issues and not everything Open Sourced is the best thing to use.

Now as far as price, anything under $100 is reasonable for a product like Pluri-Basic. Sometimes in generation #1 of a product it makes sense to keep the price a bit lower (or at least offer sales), just to get a start in selling it.  I definitely think the $50 price is a "sweet spot" and very affordable, even to a hobby programmer. Not too cheap and you can make some money, but not too expensive. 

I am looking forward to the release of Pluri-Basic.

[Brian Alvarez]

@Patrice, PluriBASIC started by a wish to cover our own needs, and it has done that wonderfully. Once one gets the hang of it can do wonders in building one-day websites, with customizable skinds and custom backend behaviour. It is possible that PowerBASIC has no future, but i have been making a living building websites with it for "modern technlogy" like jQuery, Javascript, HTML, MySQL, Ajax, PHP... and more. So, even if i haven't released it, PluriBASIC already complied with making a living for me. But yeah... i understand what you are saying. On the "selling licenses" part, it might fall flat on its face. Who knows.

@Chris, Thanks chris. I dont see any problem with releasing at $ 50.00 USD.  I might do so in the following days. Be warned (i cant stress this enough), there are stock code that needs to be written. At the moment is it not possible to just take any code and compile it with it.

[JRS]

It would be great to post what is and isn't working at this time.

[Chris Boss]

Brian,

One way to get Pluri-Basic out quicker and get some feedback is to do this:

Define it as a "Alpha" version, say Version .90. Be clear on your website that it is still currently only in the Alpha stage, but you would like to allow some to get an early chance to work with it.

Offer it for a lower price than what you plan for Version 1.0 (release version).

Define the Stock Routines that are not done yet simply as "wrappers", like this (ie. using Powerbasic syntax, since not sure of Pluri syntax yet)

Code: [Select]

SUB DefineFont (BYVAL FontID&,  BYVAL FontSize!, BYVAL FontName$, BYVAL FontProperties&)
     '  This routine has not be finished yet, but is currently called by other routines
     #ERROR_STOP "DefineFont not defined yet"
END SUB

Define the bare minimum of stock routines needed to be able to compile something reasonable. Then add a compiler directive which will stop the compiler and show an error.  Or you could instead do this:

Code: [Select]

SUB DefineFont (BYVAL FontID&,  BYVAL FontSize!, BYVAL FontName$, BYVAL FontProperties&)
     '  This routine has not be finished yet, but is currently called by other routines
     ShowErrorMsg "DefineFont not defined yet"
END SUB

and then it will compile but when run display an error message.

I personally have no problem in purchasing an Alpha version. Would be nice to experiment with it.

Now one other way to offer an Alpha version, is to call it a PreRelease Version.  The purchaser would be given the current Alpha or PreRelease version and would get (or can download) regular updates (best way is through a private child forum in your forums) and then the final release version when available.  This would give you immediate feedback while finishing it up.

[Patrice Terrier]

Microsoft Visual Studio Community is free for all indie programmers, how would you compete with this ?

You can create real commercial or freeware applications with it, fully compliant with all aspect of modern programming requirements.

Be realistic, and fall down on earth.

[Brian Alvarez]

@John the language is too extensive. The IDE already states what is not working and even hints what needs to be added and how.

@ Chris once/if you see how it is working rihgt now, you may realize this is a much better implementation at including new features. What PowerBASIC does now is parse the whole windows API, but this engine has the potential to include only the APIs required.

@Patrice Im not trying to compete with anybody. In fact I am in no rush to release.  I could very well not release it and It would still fulfill its purpose. Me releasing it, is not a crazy idea to go against big communities. It is just a hobby/small bussiness/share  idea. Mostly. Since i know its could not be good $$ and more work... I am a this point like... whatever. I mean... i havent even released it and i already was told 70 is too much for it. 

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Don't juggle with facts, Brian.

You asked and were told that certain forumers consider 80+40+...+40=120...∞ too much for an untested/unproven/unseen product.

[Brian Alvarez]

Don't juggle with facts, Brian.

You asked and were told that certain forumers consider 80+40+...+40=120...∞ too much for an untested/unproven/unseen product.

It is neither untested nor unproven nor unseen.