PureBasic uses a commandset built on top of the OS API, using generic commands to abstract it from you, the developer. One of the most daunting (and boring) task for us is to follow underlying API changes. A famous example was Cocoa support replacing old Carbon API on PureBasic for OS X. Another one is the DirectX11 support for the Sprite/Screen library on Windows. Linux isn’t left behind, with the recent GTK3 support for the whole commandset. All this requiers a lot of work, new knownledge to learn, and tons of testing, just to provide functionnalities which already work in the current API. From the PureBasic developer point of view, there is nothing fancy as the commands works as usual, only the implementation under the hood has been completely reworked. That’s one of the great strength of PureBasic: you can upgrade your program without worrying it about the technology used behind by just using a new version. OK, you will probably have some adjustements to do here and here, but it’s really nothing compared to migrate a whole program from one API to another.

Which brings us to a somewhat recurrent issue with PureBasic upgrade: commands are sometimes renamed, changed, or even removed. It often makes the developer angry as a working code needs to be modified to run again with the new version, and we don’t like to change working code. Agreed. But I would like to explain why it happens, and why it is important for PureBasic future. One important thing to understand: we don’t change the commandset unless it’s really necessary. It’s not our goal to mixup the whole stuff only to bother you. That said, the technology is always evolving and an high level programming language like PureBasic needs to follow the evolution as well. If not, it will be left behind, and a new language, using more modern API will take over. Let me use the sprite library as an example to illustrate my thoughs:

– API designed on Amiga in 1998 with no 3D acceleration. Was quite simple: sprite only, no zoom, no rotation, and many software only routines.
– Later, with DirectX7 on Windows, we got some 3D accelerated functions for some cards, so we added the ‘sprite3d’ library to support it. It was optional, as it didn’t work everywhere. That made the sprite lib a bit more hard to use, as you had to create 3D sprite using a real sprite with texture mode. DirectX7 mainly worked with 2D acceleration using DirectDraw, so we couldn’t switch to full 3D
– Nowaday DirectX9/DirectX11/OpenGL offers much better support for 3D only sprites, and 2D acceleration is not supported anymore. So all the sprites are now natively in 3D, even if we use it in 2D mode. What the purpose of having a ‘sprite3d’ lib as regular sprites are 3d anyway ? This one was obsolete, so we had to remove it to cleanup the library and have easier sprite handling, for you and for newcomers.

A new language won’t even think about separating sprite in 2 libs as it makes no sens: all is 3D now, even cheap phones handle its GUI in 3D mode. That was legacy and if we want to have PureBasic around in the future, we have to think ‘new’, and adapt the current commandset to new technology, even if it slightly breaks code. If we stick with older functionalities/design for compatibility sake, we will be slowing dying. Indeed, old PureBasic versions are available in the museum section of your online account, if you just need to do maintainance on a software.