Close this section

[FlatEarth]

My latest wish is to close the "Feature Requests and Wishlists" section.

This section is meaningless for two reasons :

1- Fred and his team either do not pay attention to the wishes, or they are not able to fulfill the wishes.
2- In most of the posts in this section, other users are looking to find a way closer to the desired request. This is currently being done in the "Coding Questions" and "Tricks 'n' Tips" sections.

With respect.

[Marc56us]

My latest wish is to close the "Feature Requests and Wishlists" section.
This section is meaningless for two reasons :
1- Fred and his team either do not pay attention to the wishes, or they are not able to fulfill the wishes.

You may not have been here long, but you should know that Fred has indicated several times that he reads everything and that a feature request is only made if it is:

1. It is technically feasible.
2. Several people are interested.
3. It will not make the current system unstable or slow.

So a feature request can be put on standby for several years waiting for a solution.

Note that you can sponsor a feature as some people do.

Code: Select all

2nd January 2019 : Version 5.70 LTS
...
    - Added: HTTPRequest(), HTTPRequestMemory() (sponsored by c-wayne)
    - Added: UseMySQLDatabase() (sponsored by Paul) 
...

[Rinzwind]

I sadly must agree with closing this section because it does not achieve anything. PB does not have a community that has a say about what direction the product should go and neither wants to apparently. If there was a will, there could be some official way to achieve this. Either support voting, raise money for certain features or give certain members insight into and allow real discussion about near future direction. Certain members could include member > x year, > x posts, sponsor, etc.
Any way, it's one direction. There is almost never an official reply. For bugs we have bug reports. Language syntax features get ignored even if there are many members wishing for something. Best we can hope for is addition to certain library functions..
It's a one man show, which is fine, but be clear about it and replace this with just a little request@pb.com e-mail address... It's not that there is ever a survey into what users want, neither a road map or open discussion. It's accept whats here or ignore/leave or work around language issues. Enough rambling
O, PB could even include an official community effort to create stable, efficient and tested open source community libraries that address missing, but commonly needed functions. Just another suggestion. Up to now we always have to skim through forum posts to try and test and hope that a given short example function works and is stable enough or libraries end up out of date, support and sight.

[the.weavster]

My feature request didn't get implemented so now I'm going to scweam and scweam and scweam until I'm sick...

[Tenaja]

I have personally had requests implemented, so I think this talk is foolishness. I think the important things to consider are if the requests help most users, don't require existing code to change, and how complex is the implementation. (As Marcus also said.)

It seems, especially lately (or any time we get a wave of new users coming from another platform), that most requests could be summarized to this:
"I used to use Free70sPowerReal80sFrojo Basic, and PB isn't exactly like that one, so can you break everybody else's code so I don't have to update my old code or learn new things?"

Sure, my first few weeks had a lot of macros to fit PB into my preferences, and probably a few selfish Feature Requests also, but not too long in I realized it was better just to embrace PB for what it is, works and all. We just need to be encouraging and help the newbies get their bearings, and things will settle down.

Another way to get things added is to write a library, or a wrapper for one. It's not like Fred is an army of coders, and right now he's busy focusing on ARM, and we should not detract from that if possible! There have been a few libraries and wrappers from here that are now built in, just that I've noticed, and I'm sure there's some I haven't looked at too.

[Tenaja]

My feature request didn't get implemented so now I'm going to scweam and scweam and scweam until I'm sick...

[IdeasVacuum]

I disagree. There is always going to be something that a few people want that does not end up in PB but that is because there are just sooooo many requests. Fact is that a lot of requests do get incorporated!

[Marc56us]

It seems, especially lately (or any time we get a wave of new users coming from another platform), that most requests could be summarized to this:
"I used to use Free70sPowerReal80sFrojo Basic, and PB isn't exactly like that one, so can you break everybody else's code so I don't have to update my old code or learn new things?"

+1

New users should not forget to read the first topic of the section
Read before posting feature requests

I'm happy with PB because everything I've needed for over 10 years I've been able to do successfully with PB and much more quickly and easily than with other programming languages. Practicing PB (almost every day) has prompted me to revise my way of doing things: simpler, therefore faster to create, maintain and evolve. In the end, faster to execute.

I have a whole stock of programs started and never finished for years with other commercial or community languages because the hundreds of libs they provide are for the most part totally abandoned or buggy and never fixed.

PB is the best example of KISS principle.

[IdeasVacuum]

PB is the best example of KISS principle.

It certainly is.

[skywalk]

I do agree there should be a voting system for all posts.
Currently, relevancy is difficult to measure and requires contextual reading, which becomes complicated if/when a prior message is deleted.
Is it true or not, the forum code has these options built-in?

[IdeasVacuum]

Yes, phpBB has a "Poll" feature for voting.

[IdeasVacuum]

Another advantage of this section:

1) PB often has what the Requester wants, just uses different terminology.
2) The expert users often write a solution - and often that solution covers considerations the Requester never thought of.

[Little John]

My feature request didn't get implemented so now I'm going to scweam and scweam and scweam until I'm sick...

[Rinzwind]

Uhm some of these request come back time and time again in a decade by different users. Never implemented, while some are certainly a good addition that fits PB fine and easy to implement. Never a reason given too. Maybe the compiler code is by now afraid to be touched because it might break.

But then, some defend anything of their favorite tool/toy blindly. I never was one sided. Glad PB exists and use it quite often, but I see a lot of room for improvements. Especially syntax wise. Little things. But that goes into specifics.

Voting and 2 way communication would go a long way, make use of the knowledgeable community. Dont see oneselves as mister know it all. Heck, even crowd funding. It doesnt seem like PB is a full time project (anymore).

Thats all folks.

Ps funny thing, way in the past you would see a lot of [Implemented] posts here it seems. Something changed. Aah, the language reached perfection?

[Tenaja]

Glad PB exists and use it quite often, but I see a lot of room for improvements. Especially syntax wise. Little things. But that goes into specifics.

...

Ps funny thing, way in the past you would see a lot of [Implemented] posts here it seems. Something changed. Aah, the language reached perfection?

Yes, something changed.

Spider Basic was added for web development.
Then, or maybe I should say now, ARM target is being developed.

Everybody wants these new targets but people frequently don't consider they take considerable time.

And people spend a tiny fee (tiny for compiler cost) and expect considerable updates even though there's not enough continued revenue for a full team of developers. If you want free updates on demand, use FreeBasic, where you add whatever you want, any time you want.

As for perfect, nobody claims that--not even Fred!. Change for the sake of change, or for a vocal minority, could damage millions of lines of existing code for the rest of us.

As for skipped requests, Fred has addressed many of the many times, like oop, which is asked for every month.

I'm no fanboy of pb, and have had very little interaction with Fred (too often critical, and often deleted by me). On the other hand, I've accepted where he stands, and have been able to at least see the reason behind his decisions.

To often people with no technical knowledge of compilers ask for a "simple" thing that may be easy to describe but difficult to implement just get all huffy because they don't get their way. It's boring.