What happened to PowerBasic?

[skywalk]

And the people seem more friendly here; nobody slams Fred like they did Zale.

Because Fred admittedly welcomes competition.

32. Why do you leave discussions of other languages in the forums? Don’t you see that as a problem and/or as advertising for other languages? Other forum moderators would delete such threads immediately…. You doesn’t seem concerned by it, or…?
"I like competition, I'm not afraid of it. If someone wants to share his experience with another language, why should we delete the thread? We are on a PureBasic forum so chances are high than the reader has already registered PureBasic. And it can help anyway, PureBasic isn't perfect for any tasks (even if we try hard to aim to that )."

Bob was darn near Orwellian in this regard.

[BorisTheOld]

Bob was darn near Orwellian in this regard.

No different than most corporate forums, no matter what the industry.

Even Fred has his limits.

[Zach]

Boris, it is not simply "the trolls" that give me bad impressions. If you read that entire archive I linked, you will find some of the replies and un-sustained accusations by PB Inc. employees and Mr. Zale himself to be a little "out there", if not quasi-ethical in some cases.

[Fred]

Please don't use this forum to comment on behaviour of other product managers, thanks.

[dhouston]

Many years ago when Usenet was still viable, Powerbasic employees posted to the Usenet Powerbasic group without identifying themselves as Powerbasic employees. One (from Australia) frequently provided excellent code snippets to address questions/issues.

When I encountered him on the Powerbasic forum, still unaware he was an employee, and asked if he could provide a code snippet to address some minor issue. I got an extremely nasty, insulting email from Bob Zale to the effect that I should pay $10000 upfront and $1000/hr if I was incapable of doing my own coding and wanted them to write my program. That led me to PureBasic.

[TI-994A]

While looking for a new development platform a few years ago, I did stumble upon PowerBasic. It looked like a natural choice for migration from VB6, but the purchase/upgrade pricing structure was not very appealing. Furthermore, I was quite hooked on PureBasic's refreshingly different syntax and structure.

Nevertheless, although I may not know Bob Zale personally, I believe that due respect should be given to a man who is so dedicated to his product. The history of PowerBasic, from its advent as Basic/Z, its reacquisition from Borland post TurboBasic, and its progressive development since, speak for itself.

May he be remembered well, and may we too have as much vigour and passion in our endeavours.

[skywalk]

Please don't use this forum to comment on behaviour of other product managers, thanks.

I sort of agree, except to say their behavior was indeed an influence for me to look elsewhere.
And it has already been explained that their forum was so biased, one could not question the product's shortcomings for fear of banning and ridicule. I am glad PureBasic is quite the opposite.

[Zach]

I'm sorry Fred,

Like I said, I wasn't really trying to start anything. But I felt everything I said was within the scope of acceptable discussion, and given the context, my comments were not specifically about a single person, but simply the image that company employees/representatives (and angry customers in some cases) were providing to the public.

I know some have chosen to comment more personally, but it is not my intent to solicit personal attacks. I was simply opining on how I wouldn't want to do business with such a company. I am very thankful, like many others have expressed, that Purebasic has a more open and free community.

The dead, of course, deserve some measure of respect. So I will say no more.

[MachineCode]

The dead, of course, deserve some measure of respect.

I've never agreed with that view. Just because someone dies, doesn't instantly make them worthy of any respect. Hitler, for example?

[Fred]

Ok, i don't like the way it takes.