Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by The47Kid.
I'm always looking into various BASICs, and I'd like to know if there is anything (besides price) that argues strongly for PureBasic, as opposed to Visual Basic, XBasic, wxBasic, or any other BASIC. I currently use these BASICs (yes, all of them) for various reasons, along with RapidQ, QBX, and a handful of others. Is there any reason for me to get PureBasic? (Portability is not a good enough reason - XB is Windows/Linux, RQ is Windows/Linux/Solaris/HP-UX, wxB is Windows/Linux/MacOS, and I use MS BASIC for my Amiga.)
Why should I use PureBasic?
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Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by koehler.
Hey, I am in the same boat.
I guess Fred has redone the site, and it does look nice and all, however it took a few before I found docs and faqs here.
Fred, even though I am going to buy PB, I'd suggest you or your assistant look into making the Introduction page a bit livelier. A little more color, more emphasis on final code size, compiled code speed comparisons, and some examples of what types of apps people have made. Blitz regularly has a demo contest where people submit
short demo/games, and the winner is given some small prize or what not. Great way to find gems to 'showcase'
The47Kid-
1. The speed the final code attains is pretty darn impressive.
* Fred, I seriously think you should put up some benchmarks to
C/C++, Visual Basic, QuickBasic, etc, etc.
2. I am interested in PB because it is not only a game making language, which Blitz and Dark are 'primarily' geared for.
I like:
- The Win32 API functions are fully supported as if they were
BASIC keywords
- Inline assembler
- Precompiled structures
3. And, I love this one:
"Note: any user can develop their own libraries. All tools are
provided in the full package. With PureBasic x86, user
libraries can be written in both C and assembler for better
flexibility."
4. Yes, and it -is- cheap.
Of course, I've only been looking into PB for about 3-4 days, however I'm sold at this point.
Hey, I am in the same boat.
I guess Fred has redone the site, and it does look nice and all, however it took a few before I found docs and faqs here.
Fred, even though I am going to buy PB, I'd suggest you or your assistant look into making the Introduction page a bit livelier. A little more color, more emphasis on final code size, compiled code speed comparisons, and some examples of what types of apps people have made. Blitz regularly has a demo contest where people submit
short demo/games, and the winner is given some small prize or what not. Great way to find gems to 'showcase'
The47Kid-
1. The speed the final code attains is pretty darn impressive.
* Fred, I seriously think you should put up some benchmarks to
C/C++, Visual Basic, QuickBasic, etc, etc.
2. I am interested in PB because it is not only a game making language, which Blitz and Dark are 'primarily' geared for.
I like:
- The Win32 API functions are fully supported as if they were
BASIC keywords
- Inline assembler
- Precompiled structures
3. And, I love this one:
"Note: any user can develop their own libraries. All tools are
provided in the full package. With PureBasic x86, user
libraries can be written in both C and assembler for better
flexibility."
4. Yes, and it -is- cheap.
Of course, I've only been looking into PB for about 3-4 days, however I'm sold at this point.
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Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by The47Kid.
Well, if speed is one of the things going for it, I suppose I'd have to buy the full version to find out, since the demo says the debugger is *always on*. And if I need special tools to develop libraries for PureBasic, I consider that a point *against* it, since VB & QB both use standard MS procedures. And VB makes it fairly (...) easy to use the API, as long as you know which procedures to call in the first place.
On the other hand, inline assembler is pretty rare with BASICs in general - I can only recall seeing it in one other BASIC (an experiment in using BASIC to write boot sectors, of all things).
Regarding benchmarks, I think that if I was sent some programs written in PureBasic, I could probably do some comparisons with the languages I have here (which is a *lot*). But I'd need both compiled programs (since I only have the slow demo) and source code (so I could rewrite for other BASICs).
Well, if speed is one of the things going for it, I suppose I'd have to buy the full version to find out, since the demo says the debugger is *always on*. And if I need special tools to develop libraries for PureBasic, I consider that a point *against* it, since VB & QB both use standard MS procedures. And VB makes it fairly (...) easy to use the API, as long as you know which procedures to call in the first place.
On the other hand, inline assembler is pretty rare with BASICs in general - I can only recall seeing it in one other BASIC (an experiment in using BASIC to write boot sectors, of all things).
Regarding benchmarks, I think that if I was sent some programs written in PureBasic, I could probably do some comparisons with the languages I have here (which is a *lot*). But I'd need both compiled programs (since I only have the slow demo) and source code (so I could rewrite for other BASICs).
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Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by fred.
Fred - AlphaSND
You miss something, it's to build special PureBasic libraries (like the one found in the PureBasic command set). It has nothing to do with the API, as PureBasic already support it, in a way which is much easier and faster than VB (no need for header, dll function declaration etc..).Originally posted by The47Kid
And if I need special tools to develop libraries for PureBasic, I consider that a point *against* it, since VB & QB both use standard MS procedures. And VB makes it fairly (...) easy to use the API, as long as you know which procedures to call in the first place.
Fred - AlphaSND
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Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by Franco.
Hi The47Kid,
I played also with a bunch of basics.
What I liked most was Euphoria, BCX and wxBasic.
XBasic was way too strange for me (the only thing I liked was 64bit floats if I recall it right), and RapidQ died the same month I found it (October 2000).
Sure if you still use wxBasic you will find that the PureBasic event handler sucks, but there are possibilities to get around it (I use my own one).
But on the other hand a wxBasic app is always 500kb+ min because of the interpreter (already packed!) - 100 times bigger than PureBasic's min file.
BCX uses LCC-Win32 so it's limited to Windows.
wxBasic and BCX are like PureBasic a one man project - but on the contrary open source - so if something happens to the main coder, the user group can pick it up (don't know if Fred has a plan B, long life Fred...).
If speed is not your main reason so maybe the flexibility of PureBasic.
You can code every style of app - normal windowed app, console app (not real DOS but Win32 console), 2D games and soon 3D games.
RapidQ is already dead because the main coder stopped the project and also is XBasic (Max Reason doesn't work anymore on it) no big realeases in years.
PureBasic is updated every 2 month or faster and the $59 bucks are forever because all updates are free.
Have a nice day...
Franco
Hi The47Kid,
I played also with a bunch of basics.
What I liked most was Euphoria, BCX and wxBasic.
XBasic was way too strange for me (the only thing I liked was 64bit floats if I recall it right), and RapidQ died the same month I found it (October 2000).
Sure if you still use wxBasic you will find that the PureBasic event handler sucks, but there are possibilities to get around it (I use my own one).
But on the other hand a wxBasic app is always 500kb+ min because of the interpreter (already packed!) - 100 times bigger than PureBasic's min file.
BCX uses LCC-Win32 so it's limited to Windows.
wxBasic and BCX are like PureBasic a one man project - but on the contrary open source - so if something happens to the main coder, the user group can pick it up (don't know if Fred has a plan B, long life Fred...
).If speed is not your main reason so maybe the flexibility of PureBasic.
You can code every style of app - normal windowed app, console app (not real DOS but Win32 console), 2D games and soon 3D games.
RapidQ is already dead because the main coder stopped the project and also is XBasic (Max Reason doesn't work anymore on it) no big realeases in years.
PureBasic is updated every 2 month or faster and the $59 bucks are forever because all updates are free.
Have a nice day...
Franco
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Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by koehler.
Originally posted by The47Kid
Well, if speed is one of the things going for it, I suppose I'd have to buy the full version to find out, since the demo says the debugger is *always on*. And if I need special tools to develop libraries for PureBasic, I consider that a point *against* it, since VB & QB both use standard MS procedures. And VB makes it fairly (...) easy to use the API, as long as you know which procedures to call in the first place.
On the other hand, inline assembler is pretty rare with BASICs in general - I can only recall seeing it in one other BASIC (an experiment in using BASIC to write boot sectors, of all things).
Regarding benchmarks, I think that if I was sent some programs written in PureBasic, I could probably do some comparisons with the languages I have here (which is a *lot*). But I'd need both compiled programs (since I only have the slow demo) and source code (so I could rewrite for other BASICs).
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Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by The47Kid.
Franco:
wxBasic may have large programs, but VB can write 20k apps - not including the 1.3 MB runtime. RapidQ may be dead, but it's still a nifty little toy. And there was no "main coder" - there was always (to my knowledge) just William Yu. As for Xbasic, take a look here:
http://xbasic.sourceforge.net
TronDoc:
If so, I guess I haven't been paying attention. I suppose PowerBasic might have it, but I don't use it anymore. What others?
Fred:
Does PureBasic support Peek, Poke, and pointers?
Franco:
wxBasic may have large programs, but VB can write 20k apps - not including the 1.3 MB runtime. RapidQ may be dead, but it's still a nifty little toy.
And there was no "main coder" - there was always (to my knowledge) just William Yu. As for Xbasic, take a look here:http://xbasic.sourceforge.net
TronDoc:
If so, I guess I haven't been paying attention. I suppose PowerBasic might have it, but I don't use it anymore. What others?
Fred:
Does PureBasic support Peek, Poke, and pointers?
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Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by Franco.
@The47Kid:
Yes, William Yu was the coder of the RapidQ compiler and he was bought by RealBasic.
What I ment was that several others/users wrote some stuff for the community because the compiler is not maintained anymore.
Regarding XBasic: I know http://xbasic.sourceforge.net but XBasic 6.2.3 was released on 27 Oct 2002 and lets face it, still nothing new with the core of the compiler (I know the compiler itself is pretty stable though and AFAIK it generates asm too). The GUI from the OS is never used (not under Win or under Linux) they have a own one - and when I tested it, the GUI was really slow. Also you have to add a runtime to your program.
On the other hand XBasic is written in itself and OpenSource like BCX.
So if you have enough time you can dive into the code and change it the way you like - but who does it?
It's too much work.
That's why I appreciate Fred's hard work, and Fred appreciates the hard work of the OGRE team and the coder of FASM.
Have a nice day...
Franco
@The47Kid:
Yes, William Yu was the coder of the RapidQ compiler and he was bought by RealBasic.
What I ment was that several others/users wrote some stuff for the community because the compiler is not maintained anymore.
Regarding XBasic: I know http://xbasic.sourceforge.net but XBasic 6.2.3 was released on 27 Oct 2002 and lets face it, still nothing new with the core of the compiler (I know the compiler itself is pretty stable though and AFAIK it generates asm too). The GUI from the OS is never used (not under Win or under Linux) they have a own one - and when I tested it, the GUI was really slow. Also you have to add a runtime to your program.
On the other hand XBasic is written in itself and OpenSource like BCX.
So if you have enough time you can dive into the code and change it the way you like - but who does it?
It's too much work.
That's why I appreciate Fred's hard work, and Fred appreciates the hard work of the OGRE team and the coder of FASM.
Have a nice day...
Franco
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Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by The47Kid.
Okay, you guys have given me something to think about. Gimme a few days to play around with the demo, see if I like it.
Fred, have you considered releasing a demo version that time-limits the executables built with it, rather than having debug always turned on? That way, the prospective users (like me) will get an idea of what the real speed is like, and it might give us a better idea of the final size of the compiled program. (I only mention it because that's how I would do a commercial demo.)
Okay, you guys have given me something to think about. Gimme a few days to play around with the demo, see if I like it.
Fred, have you considered releasing a demo version that time-limits the executables built with it, rather than having debug always turned on? That way, the prospective users (like me) will get an idea of what the real speed is like, and it might give us a better idea of the final size of the compiled program. (I only mention it because that's how I would do a commercial demo.)
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Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by The47Kid.
There is a program that compiles the runtime into your program. I have it, but I can't remember where I got it from. Probably it was linked from one or the other XB sites.Originally posted by Franco
Regarding XBasic: I know http://xbasic.sourceforge.net but XBasic 6.2.3 was released on 27 Oct 2002 and lets face it, still nothing new with the core of the compiler (I know the compiler itself is pretty stable though and AFAIK it generates asm too). The GUI from the OS is never used (not under Win or under Linux) they have a own one - and when I tested it, the GUI was really slow. Also you have to add a runtime to your program.
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Restored from previous forum. Originally posted by koehler.
Actually, one of the things frustrating me is that all the code snippets posted here just will not compile on the demo.
However, making a time-limited demo is hard, and once cracked means PB will be warezed. Of course, everything is eventually, however by actually removing parts of the compiler, Fred is reducing that likelihood.
So, I guess its damned it you do, damned if you don't...
Actually, one of the things frustrating me is that all the code snippets posted here just will not compile on the demo.
However, making a time-limited demo is hard, and once cracked means PB will be warezed. Of course, everything is eventually, however by actually removing parts of the compiler, Fred is reducing that likelihood.
So, I guess its damned it you do, damned if you don't...
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