About PureBasic

[Psychophanta]

Trying to be objective, i've compared and i ask myself:

"Is (should be) PureBasic the best (biggest and easiest for versatile purposes) of all BASIC multi-purpose languages on the world, now and of all times?"

Not only for PC, but for Amiga too.

[Codemonger]

Good question. I think Purebasic has it's own style of BASIC which conforms to the BASIC standards but if I had to draw a fine line I would put QBASIC closer to BASIC and VisualBASIC closer to BASIC than PUREBASIC. OK, now that being said, the reason I bought PureBasic originally was for the following reasons:

- BASIC Syntax (easy to use)
- Speed comparable to C,C++
- Compatible with C for conversions
- Built-In ASM (I don't program ASM but I am a speed freak, so goo to know it's available at all times)

I found the PureBasic to be very low-level with a Pseudo-High level touch to it.Which makes all the difference in the world. What do I mean ? well if you look at the Basic syntax it is very forgiving and flexible, hard to make errors. But this comes at a price, and that price is speed. For example I've seen a request to extend the for...next loop in a past post. Although it would be nice to have extra parameters that other BASICS have, I would hate to see my for...next loop decrease in speed like other BASICS have because of the extra checks and features. So Fred, whatever you are doing, you have done it right. You have held almost true to the ease of use of BASIC while keeping performance a top priority.

[dontmailme]

Hear, Hear, This is the fastest thing I ever sa... 8O.... there it goes again !

8O OK, too fast for me even to see

[fsw]

... For example I've seen a request to extend the for...next loop in a past post. Although it would be nice to have extra parameters that other BASICS have, I would hate to see my for...next loop decrease in speed like other BASICS have because of the extra checks and features. So Fred, whatever you are doing, you have done it right. You have held almost true to the ease of use of BASIC while keeping performance a top priority.

That's why other basics sometimes have several IF's:
IF
IFF
IFT
IFZ
and so on.

You are right, if you want to get all in one function - you will slow it down.
But if you build a second keyword with the sloooow functionality you have still the old fast one (if you mention it in the docs the user will be aware of it)

[bcgreen]

I've tried every basic compiler known to mankind, and PureBasic is by far the best in my opinion. No runtimes needed, meaning tiny executables! Direct compilation to machine code, baby! Fast, fast, fast. Gotta love it.

Not too mention the tight integration with the Windows API, along with a nice, simple syntax. Tons of raw power and flexibility, without having to be a rocket scientist to understand it.

Yep...I'm sticking with PureBasic.

Bryan

[Psychophanta]

I've tried every basic compiler known to mankind, and PureBasic is by far the best in my opinion.

Well, lets talk only for PC.
I know, as i can remember (for PC under MSWindows Win16 and Win32 OSes):
DarkBasic (the 1 year ago version)
Div and Div2 (for games)
PowerBASIC 7.0
MS QuickBasic 4.50
MS Visual Basic 6.0
GFA Basic
MS GWBasic
BlitzBasic (I am registered too)
BlitzBasic 3D
DX-Creator (very good basic like language by Terminus soft)

All those languages belong to last 20 years (it is a nonsense to go back in time, because it is obvious i would go worse in language posibilities and quality...)

Some of them could be better than PureBasic (always with doubt for me) for games, other for windows management, etc. But no one so complete.
I make a sum of: speed and size of final code, MS windows programming, games, 2D graphics, 3D graphics, assembler interfacing and of course, simplicity and speed while developing.

If you are thinking about no one of the mentioned is better than PureBasic, then make a mention of it, else, i will laugh a lot.

[einander]

No single compiler can fulfill all the programming needs of every programmer, but, which other language allows modular programming applications so quickly and easily?

PB is far more than pure basic

[AngelSoul]

PowerBasic is not far more as you suggest.

In terms of speed, PowerBasic is a tiny little bit faster but PureBasic makes smaller executables.

Granted, PowerBasic respect more the BASIC syntax, it allows strings with nul chars in it but the debugging is somewhat rather poor compared to PureBasic.

Overall, PureBasic is more user friendly to work with and it's a real pain doing directx graphics under PowerBasic, or at least it was the time i used it. They visualiser is quite expensive compared to the ones people made fur PureBasic and their upgrades are NOT free.

I guess it's a question of choice and taste and mine is surely made up

[einander]

In this forum, PB means Pure Basic

[Psychophanta]

PowerBasic is a tiny little bit faster

Please, make prove of speed with integers and floats.
Make same algorithms with PureBasic and PowerBasic, and then you will have to correct that your wrong afirmation.

PowerBasic respect more the BASIC syntax

Absolutely FALSE too

[einander]

I know that my english is far from perfect.

So, I must explain that my post about "PB is more than pure basic" (upper an lowercase intended),
was a play on words, meaning that Pure Basic is better than a simple basic.

May be it's time to start a Spanish PB (Pure Basic, not Power Basic! ) Forum, (not leaving this ).

Alguien se apunta? (Somebody to membership?)

[Psychophanta]

Hi Einander, i understand you. But i have had discussion in this forum about to have a single and universal PB forum.
I'd like all the world understand each other, in english (this is the more extended language and it is more or less easy and precise), french or chinesse, but only one, because languages are intended for comunication.

We sometimes learn and sometimes teach each other here in this forum. I learn from Timo, Tinman, El_Choni, Bericko, num3, Codemonger, Fred of course, etc, etc.
If i visit french forum i could only talk to Le Soldat Inconnu, Comtois, Cederavic, etc, but not to Tinman, Danilo, freedimension, for example.
If i visit german forum i can talk to Andre, Timo, and others, but not to Kale, or coma, for example.
If there was a spanish one, i could only talk (with advantage of my native language, which is an accident) to you, El_Choni, and someone other.

Conclusion: the existence of more than one forum is veeeeery restrictive. Why? I want to learn, forever, and 20 people have more (or at least same) to teach to me than 4 of those 20.

[einander]

Hi Psychophanta!
I agree in part with you:
This main forum in english is essential, and I don't want to leave!

But language specific forums are a relief for people like me, slow writers in english.
I can read english almost like spanish, but writing in english for me is a pain.

French and specially german forums are very active, and a good source for code and new ideas. Sometimes I've found there rescue for issues that on this English site had no response.

Why can't we start something like that in spanish? I think this is add, not substract.

Here, sometimes I know the answer for some asked question, but don't have the time for answer it in english. Or I have a question, but it's too complicated to translate.

Sure, it needs a minimum membership to put it in good use, but the sooner it starts, the sooner it runs.

This is far too long for my english writing

[dontmailme]

you all have very good English

I'm grateful that there are a lot of good coders posting on here in english who have other, more natural languages.

It's really helpful to us beginners who only speak English

I, like many other English speaking people are too lazy to learn other languages so are very lucky you guys learn English and can help us out.

Thanks again

[Rings]

learning english is easy, also for the older coders like me.
only kill some sixpacks of beer and you can talk a perfect gubblish english. its so easy.
small hint:
for some special dialects put a handkerchief in your mouth before speaking.

the same method works also for other languages.....