New Project Dilemma

[rsts]

I have a bit of a dilemma.

I'm starting what will be a fairly involved program (for me) that will probably be developed over the next year or more. It will tax my current capabilities and then some (you guys know who you are .

Ordinarily, I'd feel comfortable just jumping in and going ahead using my favorite programming tool, PureBasic. However, I'm not totally comfortable doing that right now.

I began using PureBasic in July of 2005 and purchased it in August. I had evaluated most of the other 'Basics' - had even purchased Liberty. I already owned Visual 6.

When I purchased, I believe I got 3.92 which was shortly updated to 3.94 and not that long after betas of 4 and the final of 4. All within the first 8 months I had owned PureBasic

The 11 months since then haven't been as productive, from a release schedule view. Two relatively minor bugfix releases.

My intent is not to start any kind of flame war or debate over the merits of PureBasic. I LOVE PureBasic.

Nor is my intent to condemn Fred in any way. He's built a tremendous language with an almost cult-like following. I can understand and support his wanting to return to a 'corporate' setting (and a regular paycheck) - I worked in a corporate environment my entire career.

My dilemma is regarding the relatively slow progress of development we've experienced lately and what appears to be Fred's increasing absence.

This post is already much longer than I had intended. No sense in rambling on.

Does anyone share my concerns? Can the 'old timers' speak to anything like this happening before? Is there just nothing left to develop? If you were me, facing what will probably become a multi-year product development cycle, would you chose PureBasic? If not, ??

MODS - PLEASE If this begins to turn into one of those oop like threads, please delete or lock it. That is not my intention. I'm looking for advice from people I consider my friends and confidantes.

cheers

[Fangbeast]

My honest opinion is that many people have long, incredibly complicated projects (commercial) that they have stated are being SOLD, done in 3.9x and for anything missing, they have made workarounds.

It was said many times in the forums that anything missing (In people's opinions) could be added in modular fashion or macro wise so that when they felt the v4 series of compiler was mature enough and error free enough, they could easily update/add to their code without breaking current and potential customer's machines. Have heard of many commercial pb successes this way.

Personally, I don't depend on pb for sales as I am no salesman, but I currently have 15 working pb4.x projects on the go (one in the police department for the last year and one in a computer firm) and although I realise I don't tax the language to it's limits, they all work without bugs.

To date, my shareware Addresser program (PB4.02) (U3 version just posted my quarterly results) has been downloaded a total of 650 times and no feedback. Does that mean it's a bad program or it just works, I don't know but would like to think the latter.

Before you start your project, i'd ask these questions...

1. Can your project be done with the current compiler without extensive addins, help, etc?

2. Do you know anyone who does similar with pb4 who can answer the pitfalls,positives?

3. Are there enough addons, workarounds etc that work for what you want to do that make it EASY to do this project?

4. Do your current pb skills warrant you starting this or would another language be better suited that you might know more.

I have loads more but don't want to bore you. Ask Paul (purevision author) what version compiler he uses as he is a commercial success. Ask all the other authors who have working commercial endeavours to see what version of the compiler they are using too.

Regards.

[PB]

Fred's stated plan is to continue updating, after the Mac/Linux ones have
caught up a bit. That's the reason for the slower updates. Personally, I'd
love to see Mac/Linux support ditched, but that's just me.

[PB]

> downloaded a total of 650 times and no feedback

No news is good news. People only bitch if they find something wrong.

[rsts]

Fred's stated plan is to continue updating, after the Mac/Linux ones have
caught up a bit. That's the reason for the slower updates. Personally, I'd
love to see Mac/Linux support ditched, but that's just me.

Uhh - let's not make that part of THIS thread (but personally

cheers

[TerryHough]

Does anyone share my concerns?........If you were me, facing what will probably become a multi-year product development cycle, would you chose PureBasic?

I have been in your position, although I started with PB much earlier.

I started a major long-term project with PB 3.92 and currently it is at/maintained with PB 4.02. Two third party libraries and one small one from a major PB contributor along with my own code create the whole thing. I view the entire process as a great success. And my customers are extremely pleased.

PB is a tool in your kit. Use it that way.

If you were going to frame a house and you already owned a Stanley 16oz. framing hammer, wouldn't you utilize it. If, halfway through the framing process, Stanley came with a newer version 16oz. hammer with fiberglass handle and soft rubber grip you might switch hammers. But, the original one would still be working perfectly. Either hammer would allow you to do your job.

I look at PB that way. For me, PB 4.02 is doing a great job. If Fred releases an update for bug fixes, that just makes the tool better. If Fred releases Vs 4.5 with more features, I will see if I can utilize those features to do my job better and faster. If so, then I will switch to it. If not, then I still have my old hammer (PB 4.02).

If you want to discuss this further, feel free to PM me.

Regards,
Terry

[rsts]

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback.

The dilemma is not as much WILL PB allow me to do the project as whether it's best for me, and I realize none of you can probably answer that.

There's nothing I'm aware of at this point that would preclude PB from allowing me to do the project. With the abundance of friendly help from this forum, I'm pretty sure I/it would be successful.

It will challenge me (I like that) and involve quite a bit of learning. It's something I will probably be enhancing/maintaining for years to come.

Yes, if PB were a hammer, I'd have no problem using it for hammering.

But a software tool isn't exactly like a hammer. Just about anyone can pick up a hammer and learn to use it in a relatively short time. Switching to another hammer is a 'no brainer' so to speak.

On the other hand, if I had used "PC Home Design" to design my 600 sq ft addition and was now starting to design a 200,000 sq ft office building, I'd probably ask myself if I wanted to continue with "PC Home Design". I may well decide I should, but I really believe I should ask myself that question.

I'm on the north side of 60. I've programmed in a dozen languages or so and no longer relish the thought of learning a new language every year or two, especially since I don't believe you can really do one justice in less than three years or more, but maybe that's just me. I just want to invest my 'learning' time as wisely as I can.

And since reading these post probably isn't a wise investment of anyone else's time, I'll stop rambling now. thanks again for your consideration.

cheers

[utopiomania]

Hi there, rsts!

To me programming in PureBasic is BIG FUN, so I don't care how these guys run their business as long as the product
itself deliver now and will deliver in the future, so..

If you have as much fun as I do programming in PureBasic, just go for it. If you break things down in sensible modules,
there's nothing stopping you from creating a great, big program success I'm shure.

No need to waste time learning another languages that could show up other, more serious limitations before you knew it!
Go with PureBasic, works best both south and north of 60, or any other number.



Well, hows that for a sales copy (I'm practising!)

[dracflamloc]

Well I'll be honest and frank.

PB is going slow supposedly because of Linux/Max versions... If its the Linux version causing the slowness well... I dunno what they've been working on thats taking so long but its really about as stale in improvements as the windows version, and its not even at a stable point yet.

If you look at the limitations of PB as it is now, and think that you'll need some 3rd-party libs and abilities for your project to make up for its shortcomings, then do NOT use Purebasic. In 2 years that lib author may have jumped ship, it happens all the time. Maybe even Fred will jump the PB ship. A lot can happen in that amount of time. The last thing you want is a compiler and library set that has bugs with what you're trying to do, and no planned fixes or updates.

You have no source code for even the simplest of libraries.

I regret starting my mmorpg project with PB. The server is great in PB but the limitations of PB are driving me nuts lately with the client.

You are a small team of 1 person... big companies end up in the 'stuck-with-a-proprietary-lib' situation all the time. It hurts them but at least they have enough reserves and resources to make up for it fairly quickly and move on. I assume you won't have that luxury.

Good luck

[dell_jockey]

if it is possible to implement your entire project with PB in its current incarnation, go for it - whatever the development stage your current toolchain happens to be in.
If this is not possible, I wouldn't make your progress dependent on someone else's release schedule - hence I would look for another toolchain...

[GedB]

rsts,

What gives you the impression that progress is slow right now?

First of all, 4 was a major change. I'm still getting to grips with all the new features.

Secondly, Fred is working on the Core of the MAC compiler for the version 4 updates. That's intense work.

Whats the worse that could happen? Open Sourcing like the Amiga version?

The funny thing is that people always worry abou being ditched by a small outfit by fantasia, but the only time I've seen developers left high and driy was with Microsoft and VB6.

[Rook Zimbabwe]

Actually I had been developing in Blitz3D for 3 years. Switching to PB was a choice because of the tighter output and easier range.

I have had problems wrapping my head around some of the interface issues, but great support got me past that hurdle.

I got in to PD instead of using BlitzMax because of that. It does do standard applications in a smaller footprint than Liberty IMHO.

I cannot think of a business app that I can't do now. Now that I have found a program in PureArea.net to decode the DLL.

Perhaps it is dealing with nunmbers and maths and the 2 place issue or number format output? I don't know. Those were minro issues solved by the great team here in less than 2 days. I recoded my POS program from VB5 to PB in about 2 months of weekends only and added a few features. The Restaurant version is only in design notes stage now But will be starting soon.

If this is a program you are going to create that is severly Graphics Intensive... I don't know. For 3D I still use B3D for most things, but I have a 3D app game based on a SLOT MACHINE that I am planning to recode in PB. Just to see how different. That would tell me more.

What type of project is it? Perhaps that would help the smarter members of the community (seriously: not me) help you locate resources and make a more informed decision.

[freak]

What you need to keep in mind is that 4.0 is not a regular update.
The amount of new features compares to that of at least 3 previous updates together.
So naturally this is taking longer.

It will not stay this way though. Updates will get smaller and be done quicker again after that.
I expect to start working on 4.1 for Windows quite soon after the 4.0 for OSX enters the beta stage,
so the pace will pick up again.

Fred is seen less frequently in the Forums than was once the case, but that
does not reflect on the amout of development he is doing. Just because he is not doing
much chatting around here anymore does not mean he is doing nothing.
He has developed PB side by side with his day job for years. I do not see a problem with that.
Of course it cannot be compared to working fulltime, but he still does a lot of work.
Also my own involvement in PB development has increased a lot since 3.94,
so you really cannot say the development is stalling.

In total, i think the development speed has not decreased. We are just
taking huge steps at the moment, so bare with us.
I think also some of you simply expect too much of a 2 man coding team. PB is not a small project anymore.

[SkyManager]

Let me share my opinion.
I am new owner of PB. (purchased since Jan/2007)

I am also quite frustrated when using PB.

But I understand that I have only invested a small amount of $. In return, we have to spend more time/headache to learn and discover workarounds.

If PB is switched to a bigger support/development team, of course, we will get more quicker responses, updates, bugfixes and support. But I'm afraid we all had to pay more.

For the current PB, I think I can live with it for my current projects in Windows and Linux as long as I can get a quick response from this support forum.

[PB]

> [...] as long as I can get a quick response from this support forum

That's the good thing about these forums: most people are friendly
and fast to help whenever they can.