Never used BB but I'm a long time Pure user (but not only...) and what I can tell you so far is this:
I know a lot of people bought Pure in anticipation of the coming 3D stuff.
But as time told you there is nothing BIG to see on the horizon.
This is also because Fred choosed ogre and now he has to adapt to the ogre development pace.
But not only this... Fred is not a 3D guru (he is an excellent asm, c, c++ and more... coder
).
He has to learn this 3D stuff like anybody else. And this takes time...
That's why in the german forum are talks about making a separate 3D engine...
Also Fred is working on Amiga/Windows/Linux/OSX, this are 4 operating systems.
And this for one guy!
Because of this, bug fixing and implementing of new features already slows down and stuff that should be implemented last year is still not implemented.
Users are playing with the Linux and OSX version of PB but only because they still patiently wait for the long avaited functions (and they need something to play with...).
The Linux version has the same version number as the Windows one, but lacks of functions found in the Windows one.
Also the OSX version is not the real deal. It uses GTK instead of the native OSX gui api.
IMHO Fred is working on too many things at the same time, and that's why some things look like they have been done half hearted.
This works the best for me:
When I use Pure, I use it as it would be a plain c compiler, most of the commands are Win API and I use build-in Pure functions only if I have to. This restricts me to Windows, but this way I know: what I coded with 3.7 works also with 3.9.
I like to think about the programming work that needs to be done and not about how to make a workaround for something that should work properly and consistent...
IMHO it would have been better if Fred would have chosen to create a neat basic to asm compiler and let the community do the other missing parts, somehow like the makers of Euphoria.
Do one thing and do it right.
On a side note:
Yesterday I took a closer look at the IBasic PRO demo version.
Compiles to asm and uses nasm as assembler. Has max 40 digits precision for math and is not too bad at all.
Also, unlike Pure, there is no restriction how you use the library functions that come with. You can make DLL's and use these functions as you wish.
Like every other compiler...
Also for people that are interested in learning asm:
take a look at RosASM - the assembler for ReactOS.
Quite impressive IMO.
The 'hello world' example with a message box goes:
Code: Select all
; Hello World RosAsm Example!
;
Main:
[StringOne: B$ 'HelloWorld!' 0
MessageTitle: B$ 'My First RosAsm App!' 0 ]
push &MB_OK+&MB_SYSTEMMODAL
push MessageTitle
push StringOne
push 0
call 'USER32.MessageBoxA'
push 0
call 'Kernel32.ExitProcess'
ret
Neat isn't it?
