Phenomenon of low popularity PureBasic :?

c4s · Post by **c4s** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 2:07 pm

A first step could be some updated screenshots on the website and not this
5 year old stuff -.-
Maybe the name itself could be made more popular by adding the demo on
popular download-pages or so...

But its true that pb is somehow unknown because when searched for a basic
alternative some years ago I just found freebasic, and mystical blitz-, etc-stuff.
Finally I found pb because of an interview on qbasic.de or so ...

Little John · Post by **Little John** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 3:31 pm

c4s wrote:Maybe the name itself could be made more popular by adding the demo on popular download-pages or so...

Huh, is the demo version of PB actually not available on popular download sites such as Softpedia, Cnet, ZdNet etc.?? I agree that it'd be important to be present there.

Regards, Little John

ricardo · Post by **ricardo** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 4:36 pm

PB wrote: On the flipside, I bought Visual Basic 5 Professional before I found out
about PureBasic. It's by Microsoft, and it no longer exists and has no
updates and isn't supported by Microsoft anymore. The world's biggest
software company decided its own language wasn't worth supporting.
Compare that to Fred's dedication to PureBasic. What do you say now?

Thats a very good point.

Psychophanta · Post by **Psychophanta** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 6:54 pm

I really enjoy PureBasic, and just that is the reason i would never like to see it is popular.
As it is now is just fine, very fine

DoubleDutch · Post by **DoubleDutch** » Sun Jul 13, 2008 8:55 pm

imho there needs to be some pre-built banners, but then PureBasic needs an affiliate scheme to have any hope of people using banner ads for it.

pdwyer · Post by **pdwyer** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 12:21 am

If they did see a pickup of 10x in their customer base suddenly due to some clever marketing or whatever it may generate more support requests than they can handle. If corporate customers are going to use it they will probably want to be able to buy support contracts too.

Is bigger actually better?
Does PB being more popular improve the quality of the product?

My guess though is that since v4 PB will be more appealing to many programmers and user base will continue to grow.

Kukulkan · Post by **Kukulkan** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:15 am

This is an interesting thread...

I wondered about the low popularity of PB, too. I think the website is an important factor as developers are mostly web-based. So they like to see a professional website for the decision to PB. As PB is good enough for business-development, the website needs to be well designed and reliable. The website needs some good screenshots of commercial applications and some games. Maybe a monthly interview with a professional developer may be helpful, too? (By the way, I will be available for that as a company that develops commercial products using PureBasic.).

So, a good website would be the key - in my opinion.

Here are examples for what I mean:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/
http://www.realsoftware.com/products/realbasic/
http://www.borland.com/
http://www.netbeans.org/

Now compare to that:
http://www.purebasic.com/

Understand the point? It's not the content of the pages, it is the "look and feel". The pages need to be more "company like". More "trustworthy looking" and "corporate style".

Kukulkan

pdwyer · Post by **pdwyer** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 7:56 am

Some of those sites are pretty high maintenance and talk a lot about things that PB doesn't do (partners, training etc)

An uplift of the PB site might be in order, some more details maybe. Personally I don't go there much as there's not much new on the page but then product releases are all that is actually new generally with PB so there's not much to actually update the page with.

The flip side is that what even looks worse that a dull page is a really flashy page that got done once and the mainenance was so high on it that it's all out of date information, like a nice paint job on a ghost town.

I'm still wondering though, what the benefit is to you if PB does become more popular

For some people they might be able to put it on their resume's and have employers actually know the product but perhaps that's not what Fred and co care about.

I don't pretend to know what business model PB runs under, I sometimes worry a little that with no upgrade fees it might not be sustainable but if the owners are happy and their customers are happy (features, stability and upgrade intervals) than what does popularity bring really?

A temp staff member to fill the docs out a little more is about all I can think of

Kukulkan · Post by **Kukulkan** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 8:59 am

Hi,

The benefit of more people using PureBasic is, in my opinion, obvious:

- the more users, the more money for Fred and his team
- more money ensures, that Fred will continue development because he is able to pay his monthly bills
- more money may enable Fred to employ additional core-developers
- additional core developers will enhance product quality and add additional features
- a professional support team will be possible, as enough people will pay for professional support (as I would do).
- more PB users increasing acceptance of PureBasic for professional development (Customer: Use C# or VB.NET. Developer: Why not using PB? Customer: What is PB? Developer: A programming-language that is used by some hundred people...)
- more users will create more third-party tools for PB development.

And surely, some other people may find other benefits of increasing the user count.

Kukulkan

pdwyer · Post by **pdwyer** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 10:35 am

You are making the assumption in the first 5 that this is the kind of business that Fred and Freak actually want to build. You could be right but from what little I have seen it doesn't seem to be where they are headed.

The last point is a good one, more users means a better market for third party tools to make money which means possibly more/better third party tools. But, is that last point a high priority for the PB team itself? It may be just a "nice-to-have".

(Just my feeling)
PB doesn't strike me as a company that are in it for building a big money making enterprise, I think they enjoy what they do and want to preserve the type of company PB is for them.

That's just how it seems to me anyway, and I'm fine with that. If I wanted a more commercial application with support plans and a known brand then I would buy a product like that rather than PB. I don't need those things though

Kukulkan · Post by **Kukulkan** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:29 am

Hi Paul,

You are making the assumption in the first 5 that this is the kind of business that Fred and Freak actually want to build. You could be right but from what little I have seen it doesn't seem to be where they are headed.

Hmmmm. If it is not the goal to make enough money to live and maybe expand the own company, those people better should invest their capabilities in OpenSource projects. Those people are no businessman/businesswoman. This is not meant in a bad way. For me, as a developer who develops commercial software for customers and for sale by myself, the reliability and professionality of a development environment or programming language is essential. I need PB to stay actual and supported for years. If the PB team would do everything 'just for fun' without any business thoughts, they maybe change their mind in some weeks and PB will become stuck because they more like to create a new raytracing engine or some other trendy project?

Maybe I need to reconsider the usage of PureBasic for commercial development... (not serious

)

Kukulkan

PB · Post by PB » Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:56 am

> I need PB to stay actual and supported for years

The best predictor of the future is the past. PureBasic has, and always will,
continue to flourish. Look again at PureBasic's history. It started on the
Amiga way back in 1995. Look how far it has come in its 13 years of life.
Do you really think a 13-year-old product is suddenly going to stop? Is
that not enough to convince you that it's staying actual and supported?

> more PB users increasing acceptance of PureBasic for professional development

Why is there always this fear that there is no user base for PureBasic?
How do we know how many people use it? There could be thousands
for all you know. People seem to assume that the only people using
it are those on these forums. Fred has always kept quiet on the actual
number, but for a product to survive for 13 years so far, and been on
the cover disc of PC magazines and on Amazon.com and even found
on dubious web sites, it surely has a bigger user base than just those
of us here.

I said it before, and I'll say it again: every few months we get this sort
of thread starting here. And then it dies down, and PureBasic gets some
more updates. Then more people come here, and they start this sort of
thread all over again... and again... and again. I've seen it about eight
times so far myself! And yet PureBasic just plows on through regardless.

Relax, people. It isn't going anywhere. Sheesh. :roll:

pdwyer · Post by **pdwyer** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 12:44 pm

Kukulkan,

It doesn't seem to me that PB is the type of business you think. The payment model seems to be based entirely on new users with no upgrades or new products (in 13 years as PB (the user) points out). Coincidently in 1995 that kind of business model was just about to become popular in Albania

(a fun read for those who don't know what crashed an entire economy http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fan ... jarvis.htm)

I suspect that PB owners have other sources of income to just PB and like PB (the user) says, we don't know how big it really is! maybe they have a couple of corporate contracts that are being charged for support and it's a real cash cow!

Kale I think mentioned how many books aproximately he has sold and seemed to imply that it was worth his while to write it so I guess theres quite a few more than "a few hundred"

I remember at Powerbasic, where the forum probably was (or seemed) a little larger, Bob zale (owner) often said that it would be foolish to assume the size of their customer base by the number of forum viewers and even more foolish to assume a number based on the number of active forum posters.

I would suspect the same is true here.

Wanting to do something to help out with their image is one thing, but this post's topic title is somewhat negatively slanted which is somewhat unjustified since we have no idea about the PB business or customer base and are just guessing based on what we know of what we have heard of their image and perceived market presence

Maybe it's just a money laundering front for a terrorist who's brother was a bored programmer and his buddy so it's supposed to make a loss, in the mean time they are limitlessly backed to work on their toy app

zxtunes.com · Post by **zxtunes.com** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:15 pm

PB wrote:> I need PB to stay actual and supported for years

The best predictor of the future is the past. PureBasic has, and always will,
continue to flourish. Look again at PureBasic's history. It started on the
Amiga way back in 1995. Look how far it has come in its 13 years of life.
Do you really think a 13-year-old product is suddenly going to stop? Is
that not enough to convince you that it's staying actual and supported?

All true.

Win, Mac, Linux its cool, but i want write aplication and game and for X-Box, PSP, NDS and Windows Mobile.

Obviously 13 more years would be required that only 2 persons could realize (moreover and to support) nammed platforms.

As exists biases (сontempt) concerning languages of a high level, and it is concrete Basic. I consider it it is necessary overcome, but how?

There Is an average portrait of user PureBasic.

Whether it is a lot of people which well know C/C ++ and thus seriously use PureBasic?

By the way, I do not know as in other countries. But in Russia to buy PureBasic it is not too simple (it is necessary to get a bank card, but not all cards work on the Internet, besides to get a card too costs money).

pdwyer · Post by **pdwyer** » Mon Jul 14, 2008 1:44 pm

Right tool for the job.

A combat medic doesn't use his scalpel on the battlefield or his gun in surgery

PB is not an everything tool for every platform it is a tool better suited to some tasks than others.