At future with PureBasic ?

[IndPro]

Hello.

I have spend a good while with free demo of PureBasic. I am very pleased for it's simplicity and features. Definately something to use. But i am bit worried about the future of PureBasic. A little birds has told me, that in future specially plans of Microsoft could cause problems for software companies such as Fantaisie Software.

My plans goes on for few years, 5 to 10 to be accurate. Is there any information available what is goin to happen with PureBasic in future.

Thank you, IndPro.

[IdeasVacuum]

Nobody knows if Microsoft can last that long! They have been rapidly diminishing. If anyone had such a crystal ball to tell the future, then that would make far more income than writing programs

[bobobo]

Besides, the world ends on the 21/12/2012

Microsoft should hurry up to achieve the ambitious goals.

[fsw]

[Danilo]

Is there any information available what is goin to happen with PureBasic in future.

A quote from one of the developers of PureBasic:

We don't talk much about our plans anymore for one simple reason: plans change.

Some times we do announce even the hint of something that is to come and people hype it up to such ridiculous proportions that there is no way that the actual implementation will satisfy everything that people dreamed up in their head. Then if the release comes all we get is disappointment that what is actually a pretty cool feature did not live up to everyone's wild expectations. It is even worse if we decide to postpone or drop the announced feature.

And the boss said:

To finish on the ‘PureBasic end’ things: if we decide to stop PureBasic (which is very unlikely), we will release it to the community, either in Open Source form, or to a small group which could take over the development.

So if Microsoft and Apple are closing, PB for Linux will still be there and made
open source because the Linux guys don't like commercial closed source software anyway.
Beside that you can continue using the current PB with Win95 - Win7.

[the.weavster]

A little birds has told me, that in future specially plans of Microsoft could cause problems for software companies such as Fantaisie Software.

I think that's only an issue if you want to use the 'Metro' style user interface.

[MachineCode]

i am bit worried about the future of PureBasic

Maybe this will help relax you -> http://www.purebasic.fr/english/viewtop ... =7&t=45773

[Tenaja]

My plans goes on for few years, 5 to 10 to be accurate. Is there any information available what is goin to happen with PureBasic in future.

In short, no. The blog promises this, after April:

We will probably ship one or two bug fix versions and then a new major with a priority for the 64 bit Cocoaified OS X version (which is already running here, but not yet finished/tested). After that, may be some big surprises

I have been using PB for about 1.5 yrs, and for the most part, I am happy with it. My primary use is text manipulation.

The developers have clearly declared that ARM will never be covered. That kills any tablet plans. Win8 (for x86 cpu's) is a great unknown--nothing has been promised.

The majority of PB updates seem to focus on adding libraries for game-oriented programmers. Here is the History (from the Help file) for the past two years:

History

7th November 2011 : Version 4.60

- Added: a brand new '3D' example folder
- Added: 'Joint' library
- Added: 'SpecialEffect' library
- Added: 'StaticGeometry' library
- Added: CameraPitch(), CameraRoll(), CameraYaw(), SwitchCamera()
- Added: ApplyEntityForce(), ApplyEntityImpulse(), EntityPitch(), EntityRoll(), EntityYaw()
- Added: GetEntityAttribute(), GetEntityMaterial(), SetEntityAttribute(), SetEntityMaterial()
- Added: LightDiffuseColor(), SpotLightRange(), LightLookAt(), DisableLightShadows()
- Added: MaterialDepthWrite(), MaterialSelfIlluminationColor(), MaterialShininess(), GetScriptMaterial()
- Added: CreateLine3D(), CreateCube(), CreateSphere(), CreateCylinder(), CreatePlane()
- Added: MeshVertexCount(), UpdateMeshBoundingBox(), MeshRadius(), AddMeshVertex()
- Added: MeshVertexNormal(), MeshVertexColor(), AddSubMesh(), BuildMeshShadowVolume()
- Added: MeshVertexTextureCoordinate(), AddMeshFace(), FinishMesh(), NormalizeMesh()
- Added: SaveMesh(), SetMeshMaterial(), SubMeshCount(), TransformMesh()
- Added: NodePitch(), NodeRoll(), NodeYaw(), GetScriptTexture(), TextureOutput()
- Added: EntityCollide(), RayCollide
- Added: OpenGL renderer to the 3D library on Windows, when using the OpenGL subsystem
- Added: CanvasGadget(), CanvasOutput()
- Added: SetGadgetItemData() for PanelGadget
- Added: MoveElement(), MergeLists(), SplitList()
- Added: RandomizeList(), RandomizeArray(), DoubleClickTime()
- Added: PushListPosition(), PopListPosition(), PushMapPosition(), PopMapPosition()
- Added: ImageID parameter to OpenSubMenu()
- Added: #PB_ListIcon_ThreeState and #PB_ListIcon_Inbetween
- Added: #PB_Tree_ThreeState and #PB_Tree_Inbetween
- Added: crossplatform ComboBox events
- Added: 'DeclareC' keyword for completness

- Changed: FindString() 'StartPosition' parameter to be optional
- Changed: WebGadget to use WebKitGtk on Linux
- Changed: ContainerGadget with #PB_Container_Borderless to no longer add a 2px invisible border on Linux
- Changed: EntityPhysicBody(), CreateLight(), RenderWorld(), ShowGUI(), WorldShadows()
- Changed: EntityMaterial() to SetEntityMaterial()

- Removed: Get/SetEntityMass(), Get/SetEntityFriction()
- Removed: SetMeshData()

- Fixed: Many bugs

IDE:
- Added: IDE options for commandline project building
- Added: monitoring of files for changes on disk while they are open in the IDE
- Added: FilePanel custom implementation with Drag & Drop, Dropdown menu, scrolling also on OSX
- Added: Diff tool for directories/files
- Added: Html help viewer for Linux/OSX
- Added: Help viewer in toolspanel
- Added: new Color Picker tool
- Added: enabled font selection in IDE for OSX
- Added: ProjectPanel now remembers node expanded states

Debugger:
- Added: maximize button to all debugger windows
- Added: all IsXxx() and XxxID() functions to the expression parser (for data breakpoints)

8th September 2010 : Version 4.51

- Fixed: Quite some compiler and libraries related bugs
7th June 2010 : Version 4.50

- Added: Support for Array, List, Map inside structures
- Added: CopyList(), CopyMap(), CopyArray()
- Added: FreeList(), FreeMap(), FreeArray()
- Added: CopyStructure(), InitializeStructure()
- Added: Volume support to PlaySound()
- Added: Depth parameter to SaveImage()
- Added: ImageDepth() flag to get the original or current image depth
- Added: #PB_Image_Transparent flag for CreateImage()
- Added: 32bit support to TGA image decoder
- Added: RoundBox(), AbortFTPFile(), RandomData()
- Added: #PB_2DDrawing_AllChannels mode for DrawingMode()
- Added: Image support for ComboBoxGadget()
- Added: Graphical console functions to linux
- Added: Large file support to File library on Linux/OSX
- Added: CryptRandom(), CryptRandomData(), OpenCryptRandom(), CloseCryptRandom()
- Added: Many math functions: Exp(), ATan2(), Radian(), Degree(), [A]CosH(), [A]SinH(), [A]TanH(), IsNaN(), IsInfinity(), NaN(), Infinity(), Sign()
- Added: 'Debugger' Library to control some debugger actions from code

- Changed: The Image library now keeps images internally in 24bit or 32bit (loading and saving works with other bit depths)

- Fixed: Quite some bugs in libraries and in the compiler

IDE/Debugger:
- Added: Keyword underline for Break, Continue, ProcedureReturn
- Added: StatusBar help for prototypes and interfaces
- Added: Keyword sensitive indentation (block mode is still available)
- Added: "Format indentation" option in the edit menu
- Added: Indentation guides and whitespace options
- Added: The ability to select multiple compilers in the compiler options
- Added: Purifier tool for the debugger
- Added: Full debugger compatibility between all OS and processors
- Added: Network debugging for the standalone debugger
- Added: Data breakpoints for the debugger
- Added: Support for structured items in the 'View Array/List/Map' tab of the Variable Viewer

- Changed: The Array, List or Map name in the Variable viewer should be entered with a "()" now to display their elements.
1st February 2010 : Version 4.41

- Fixed: Quite some compiler and libraries related bugs

[c4s]

The majority of PB updates seem to focus on adding libraries for game-oriented programmers.

Absolutely not true. The 3D part simply needed a big update which was done in 4.60. (That's also what your quoted changelog reflects if you take a closer look. )

[Tenaja]

The majority of PB updates seem to focus on adding libraries for game-oriented programmers.

Absolutely not true. The 3D part simply needed a big update which was done in 4.60. (That's also what your quoted changelog reflects if you take a closer look. )

Well, from the list I read over 3/4 of it is game oriented. All of the new libararies, and most of the new commands.

[USCode]

Having been around during a significant portion of PB's development, I've found the development process to be well rounded and logical.

Early on new language features were added, unicode support, new data structures, etc.
After the language itself became relatively feature complete and stable they focused on adding new libraries, supporting x86_64, etc.
I think this is the best path to follow. In my view the more feature-rich libraries a language has, the more useful it is.

Also, the PB team tends to focus on specific functional areas by release. This last release didn't have much for me because it was focused on graphics/gaming development and I write user desktop applications, but I am confident future releases will have new libraries and features of more interest to me. (e.g. Support for Zip files, mail library authentication, MySQL, etc.)

Regarding the future of PB, it's true that development has slowed down lately as the PB team needed to focus on their 'day' jobs and we were used to (spoiled by?) a quicker rate of PB development.
However, the primary author of PB will soon be once again working on PB full-time: http://www.purebasic.fr/blog/?p=383 !

The future of PB continues to look bright.

[c4s]

Well, from the list I read over 3/4 of it is game oriented. All of the new libararies, and most of the new commands.

As I said, this might be true for 4.60. However, the changelog for 4.50 looks totally different. In fact there is no change for the "game part" at all.
Please note that improved functionality in 2DDrawing, like alpha support etc. (PB 4.40), or e.g. adding a depth parameter to SaveImage() (PB 4.50), has nothing to do with gaming. I for example heavily use the great new functions of 4.40 for image manipulations and such.
So again: It's simply wrong to say that new updates are "game-oriented".

[Tenaja]

These are all from 4.5, and they are all game oriented:

- Added: Volume support to PlaySound()
- Added: Depth parameter to SaveImage()
- Added: ImageDepth() flag to get the original or current image depth
- Added: #PB_Image_Transparent flag for CreateImage()
- Added: 32bit support to TGA image decoder
- Added: RoundBox(), AbortFTPFile(), RandomData()
- Added: #PB_2DDrawing_AllChannels mode for DrawingMode()

- Added: Graphical console functions to linux

- Added: Many math functions: Exp(), ATan2(), Radian(), Degree(), [A]CosH(), [A]SinH(), [A]TanH(), IsNaN(), IsInfinity(), NaN(), Infinity(), Sign()

You may use them elsewhere, too (like cad), but they are game functions to me....so...half? But 4.6 was a bigger update, and almost exclusively game.

[Guimauve]

A little birds has told me, that in future specially plans of Microsoft could cause problems for software companies such as Fantaisie Software.

The solution is very simple, just move to Linux Operating Systems.

Best regards.
Guimauve

[deeproot]

@IndPro

I selected PureBasic as the language for my commercial application - a straight replacement of a mature VB6-coded product. It is getting near release state now and the "ongoing plan" is also about 5 - 10 years (maybe!!).

I registered about 2 years ago. Looked at virtually all alternative choices. My work is database orientated, not games. I am happy PureBasic was the best choice for me - no regrets at all!!

It must be accepted that changes by MS could cause future problems - but that's true of nearly everything. During 10 years with VB6 I've had a few (a "security" update to one .ocx or .dll can break your program). IMHO PureBasic appears less prone to such issues than MS own products (and a bonus - the possibility of moving to Linux/MacOS).

Geoff.