Gadget?!!... GADGET!!!???? Did I just enroll in pre-school?

[Randy Walker]

As a former GFA Basic user, I have to say I am very pleased to have found PureBasic. Aledged bug reports?... they didn't scare me. I know much of it is operator error (my specialty) and much can be attributed to SCS (stupid computer syndrome (time to re-boot)), BUT the one thing that almost sent me the other direction (to PowerBasic) was GADGETS.

I exhausted a lot of time comparing PowerBasic and PureBasic to my former GFA Basic and found both very similar in many ways. Both appeared to offer a lot of compatibility, and at first glace, PowerBasic took 1st place hands down. I was ready to put my money down on PowerBasic, but an In depth comparison seemed to reveal more flexibility in PureBasic than in PowerBasic. I am sorry to say (almost ashamed) that PowerBasic has an obvious advantage resulting from professional assignment of terms, and I chose PureBasic instead. PowerBasic just looks more professional and only for ONE REASON. The following paragraph may help to illustrate my point:

Gadget the gadget text gadget within gadget this gadget paragraph gadget is gadget easily gadget understood gadget when gadget it gadget is gadget not gadget so gadget heavily gadget laden gadget with gadget superfluous gadget verbage gadget that gadget says gadget nothing gadget and gadget contributes gadget noting gadget to gadget it's gadget content gadget. Gadget in gadget fact gadget if gadget you gadget remove gadget the gadget exraneous gadget text gadget from gadget this gadget paragraph gadget, it gadget consumes gadget far gadget less gadget space gadget, not gadget to gadget mention gadget its gadget a gadget lot gadget easier gadget to gadget read gadget.

(Hint: remove all the gadgets above and the paragraph looks, feels and reads as it should - - without superfluous verbage.)

I don't mean to knock the product, the young or the young at heart but, it looks like a child has been tampering with a very significant portion of the keyword/command set. What is with all this gadget stuff???!! You're developing a phenominal product here with really great potential and then you turn around and dress all the controls up in diaper material.

Can you please do something to get rid of the extraneous gadgets? I could live with the main kaywords like "Gadget", but there is no discernable reason to require "SetGadgetText" when simply "SetText" would suffice. That being only one of many many examples. CreateGadgetList, AddGadgetItem, GetGadgetItemText, etc., etc., etc.

I am a strong advocate of compiled BASIC and it is obvious to me that PureBasic is a very formidable product with a great deal of potential. The part that disturbs me; dressing PureBasic up in diapers does not do justice to the BASIC programming community. A community I am sure would prefer to be looked upon as professional - what many have strived for and (dare I say it) only Bill Gates has nearly conquered. Lets look professional... loose the gagets!!!

No I don't particularly care for the way Bill Gates sold out:
http://www.redrival.com/ethics/
I am particularly glad to see products like PureBasic and PowerBasic holding their own. Especially PureBasic since that seems to offer the most "power" (sorry PowerBasic ) and it turned out to be my final choice.

Well, anyway. That's my unqualified feedback as a soon to be newbie. Paid for it but still have to go download it and get started.

Truly EXCELLENT work PureBasic... keep up the good work (and please please p-l-e-a-s-e loose the gadgets )

Thanks,
Randy

[freak]

lol

(it is called 'Gadget' because that's what the controls were called on the Amiga,
which is where PureBasic comes from.)

[Randy Walker]

Great! It came from Amiga... the Yuppies Atari game machine. So does this mean we need to keep the programming communities perspective on BASIC in diapers altogether?

I was just explaining how PureBasic almost lost my following. Tell me, how many Visual Basic users are there compared to PureBasic. Percentage-wise, is that where you want to see it stay? I don't care how you defend it's birth. The fact is "Gadgets" is not professional, does not sound professional, does not look professional and almost sent me the other way. Do you honestly think this is good for business? If not for my diligence, PowerBasic WOULD have gotten my business instead.

That's my only point on this topic and I'm sticken by it

Randy

[plouf]

purebasic keeps comamnd selfexplaning and this a big advantage of it

the fact the command is named SetGAdgetTExt is because its set the text in gadget
that how you know that you dont set text in statusbar because its command statusbartext and drwingtext 'draws text'

this logic global-purasicanian
and makes sence

[kake26]

PureBasic is very good and people shall catch on and follow. At first when I bought PureBasic it sat on my HD alot doing nothing. Then I began using it and I am cranking out code galore now. Though PB has its short commonings thats nothing I can't write a quick hack for in FPC(Free Pascal). I truely love PB though. PB is what VB should have been, but will never be. .NET is a joke you need a whole framework installed on a computer to run a .NET app. Up until VB 6, VB was toleratable despite the runtimes. Its that which turned me in the direction of Delphi/FPC/Pascal. PB has renewed my faith in this lost cause called BASIC. In all honesty cause of PB its not a lost cause anymore.

[Codemonger]

Hi Randy,

Interesting read (the link that is). OK Gadgets is a little funny because I'm from VB background. I can't disagree with you their ... but you should and everybody here should understand the history of bloatware. Whether we like it or not it's part of our lives and it comes down to standards and backward compatibility.

When you design a long lasting product like an OS you have to make decisions and you really have no idea of how those decisions will turn out. So lets look at windows it uses and used DLL's to solve all sorts of future problems they could forsee. Apple on the other hand does not use DLL's it's architecture is simply run the program not share DLL's or make use of reusable code. Now I'm not an advocate of Microsoft because I hate bloatware but unfortuneatly I would hate to think of people soo naive creating the worlds OS and having to change the semantics every version so programmers have to rewrite their code ... it would suck !! imagine having to rewrite all apps to be compatible with newer OS's etc .. Actually Apple works like that, older programs won't run on newer OS's ... Anyway thats why bloatware comes about ... it's really for backward compatibility.

So now we know one reason for bloatware .. I think a solution should come in handy ... So in PB case Gadgets isn't the word some would use, but changing it would cause major incompatibilities with older source programs and such. If a new word was introduced, maybe a solution would be to create a code upgrader like the new .net Beta products that upgrade your old code to be compatible with the new stuff. It's never flawless you'll always ancounter problems, but it is cool to stay up to date easier.

Anway I'm just ranting and half the stuff I'm saying just comes out of my a@# , but I really understand why it's hard to change old habbits. For some things it's better to change sooner than later, I guess.

It would be cool to see someone turn some OOP parts of PB into classes for creating and editing gadgets .. that would be neat so Gadgets could be used like Visual languages.

[MadMax]

I'd rather have a less "professional" language that is easier to code and understand. Must say, I'm ever so glad that PB doesn't look at all like VB.

Anyway colours for tastes.

[Dare2]

Talking of gadgets, that redrivel site had an interesting one. Tried to push something through and killed IE when I stopped it. FireFox went in ok and appeared to nullify the popup or whatever.

If I saw Bill Gates bleeding in the gutter begging for mercy, I would walk past with nothing more than chuckle to offer him - his crime to society is that great and I am only sorry it is not as obvious to others as it is to me.

• :roll:

This is obviously a far more ethical attitude than any held by Mr Gates.

[Doobrey]

Great! It came from Amiga... the Yuppies Atari game machine.

You mean you couldn`t afford one and had to settle for an inferior Atari instead??

BTW, what`s wrong with the word 'gadget', to me it makes the command very descriptive. You can`t just go around cutting words out of commands.
An example you gave was CreateGadgetList, if that was renamed to CreateList, most people would think it had something todo with the linked list commands.
Anyway, with macros coming in PB4, you can alias the commands to whatever you want.

[PB]

> how many Visual Basic users are there compared to PureBasic

Yes, but VB how old is VB compared to PB? And VB has the Micro$oft name
behind it. They're the ONLY reasons VB is more popular/well-known than
PureBasic. Anyway, VB is nothing to be proud of -- even a simple "Hello
world" app takes up around 1 MB of space, but PureBasic can do it in 5 K!
This is due to VB's bloated code and 1 MB runtime file that VB requires.
There's simply no such thing as a standalone executable in Visual Basic.

> PowerBasic just looks professional

You said it.

> What is with all this gadget stuff???!! You're developing a phenominal
> product here with really great potential and then you turn around and
> dress all the controls up in diaper material.

No offense, but it seems you're the only one who feels this way. The end
user of your product doesn't see the command set, so what's the big deal?
You're complaining about nothing. You did your homework before buying,
and chose PureBasic, so live with it. I certainly don't want a newbie coming
along and forcing me to change all my sources because he doesn't like the
word "gadget" in the commands. What right do you have to do that to us?

Look, I know what you're saying. Your post, and the one about charging
for updates, seem to indicate that newbies are worried about PureBasic's
professional reputation. You're both clearly worried about it. You're both
acting as though PureBasic doesn't have a future unless it changes. Why
are you worried? PureBasic has been around for a long time and has very
regular updates. It isn't going anywhere. It doesn't pretend to be a killer
app to overthrow Visual Basic or any other Basic. It does its job, and very
well, PERIOD. It gets better and more powerful with every new release.
That's all one can ask for. That's why I bought it. I don't care if some of
the commands are weird -- I thought FindString was stupid at first, instead
of InStr, but it does the same job and is fine. That's all that matters.

Did you know an upcoming release will support macros, so that you can
rename any commands to whatever you want? If it bothered me, I could
therefore change FindString to InStr if I wanted, but I won't, because I'm
happy with the language. Give it time, and you will be, too.

(Disclaimer: Despite my name being PB, I am not part of the PureBasic
team. PB is just my initials and I am nothing more than a happy user).

[PolyVector]

Randy,
Fred can spend his time improving the language, or he can waste time improving the appearance of it (breaking compatibility)...
In my oppinion, this is a childish thing to ask... A child will cry and complain about something, but do nothing to solve it... You've made your point through your little 'Gadget Gadget Gadget' stunt, yet offered no solution of your own... This is the "Feature Request and Wishlists" forum... not the "I Dun Like This" forum...

You could always go complain to Microsoft about this command (for treating you like you made it through college):
InterlockedCompareExchangeRelease64
I should warn you, however, that if you pull your 'Gadget Gadget Gadget' stunt with ' InterlockedCompareExchangeRelease64'... You're going to really piss some people off...

When you come up with a word that is so fantastic that it justifies breaking all compatibility... come back here and post it...

BASIC was designed to be basic.
It's as simple as that.
Get over it.

[Randy Walker]

My effort on this topic was intended to expose my fisrt impressions regarding PureBasic. Personally I am quite pleased and confident with my purchase (although I would REALLY like for someone to tell me where I need to go to get my password or whatever it is I need to do to get version 3.91).

I consider myself a novice for one very good reason. I am NOT a "programmer". I have one small but serious project and everything else I do is for my own entertainment. Don't want to hear how your product impresses newcommers??? Fine. Then gadgets are a wonderfull thing and everyone should have at least two... LOL. You're right. End users don't see our code, BUT, those who appraise your product do. This is not "my opnion". This is my "shared observation". If you were offended, all I can say is, you missed my point entirely and reiterating the facts would be futile. If my observation holds no value to you personally, then I am sorry for wasting your time and I apologize.

[PB]

> Don't want to hear how your product impresses newcommers??? Fine.

Every single one of us in this community were impressed by PureBasic to
go ahead and buy it. We were all newcomers like yourself too, you know.
And we liked what we saw -- even if it was a little different to what we were
used to. But we saw the power behind the language and accepted it.

> End users don't see our code, BUT, those who appraise your product do.

We all know that, and don't care. Think about what you're asking: to change
commands because they sound stupid? That's not a fair argument. Anyone
who's coded in multiple languages before knows that each language has its
own quirks and names. For example, to find text in a string in these Basics:

C64 Basic = Non-existent.
Visual Basic = InStr.
PureBasic = FindString.
Psion OPL = Loc.

Where is the standard? There is none. Each language to its own. You say
that "gadget" in command names is ridiculous, but look at BlitzBasic:

http://www.blitzbasic.com/bpdocs/comman ... ow=Gadgets

So that's two Basic languages (Pure and Blitz) that make big use of them.
Really, what you're asking is a non-issue, and would break all our source
codes that we've written over the years. Where is the fun in that?

Update: BTW, this isn't meant to discourage you from being an active user
of these forums. We certainly welcome you here, even if we don't agree
with what's been said on this occasion. Glad to have you on board!

[Randy Walker]

"We were all newcomers like yourself too, you know."

No sir... you are not "like myself". If you were, you would not be arguing and defending something that has nothing to do with my point.

"Where is the standard? There is none. Each language to its own. You say that "gadget" in command names is ridiculous, but look at BlitzBasic:"

First, I never used the word "rediculous". I said "not professional". Pay attention. Now, you want to compare PureBasic to others to support your views, which brings me back to my original point. BASIC in general is not given the credit it is due by the "professional" community. EVEN VISUAL BASIC!!! You would probably dispute that as well. Your justification is that if other BASIC's don't look professional, then PureBasic should not strive to acheive recognition as a "professional" alternative.

Like I said, I was just sharing my observation in hopes that this one issue could eventually be resolved. With attitutes like yours, I'm sure that will never happen. Funny thing is, you are willing to accept and adjust to a lack of standards between platforms and at the same time, are unwilling to even consider formulating and adapting to something that could one day become professional standards for BASIC in general.

[Dare2]

lol. Feisty.

If you've bought PB already, then welcome aboard. If not, then buy it, and then welcome aboard.

No sir... you are not "like myself".

Dare I say "fortunately"?