Newbie looking at PB questions

[Trond]

It seems that Pure's strength is game support, but I'm not interested in them.

PureBasic's strength is more applications than games, if you ask me.

[Tenaja]

No problem. I help where I can.
Anyway, I recommend you to check PureBasic out for maybe a week or so: try the examples, study the detailed changelog (it's in the demo), read the blog, check out some nice codes you can find here on the forum (e.g. at "Tips and tricks" or "Applications - Feedback and Discussion") etc.
Deciding for a specific programming language isn't something you can do from comparing a list of differences. You have to feel the pure power of each language and then find out what more fits to your needs...

c4s--thanks, again. I have been playing with it for several days. My goal in evaluating a tool is not so much finding out what it's strong in, but more importantly, what it's weak in. That way I can determine for myself if the deficiencies will hinder my goal. Of the users on the Power site who said they own both packages, they almost unanimously said they'd use Pure if they were coding a game. Apparently graphics and sound are--to them--Pure's strong points.

Well seriously, I really think this should be fixed. Shouldn't take too long and just confuses potential new users. I bet they lost a few purchases just because of this. Would I be here if they were dead like 3 years ago...

FWIW, (more importantly for Fred) I made an excel sheet evaluating potential tools. One of the lines scored the web site. Comparing with two other similar commercial offerings, RealBasic scored the highest--by far. (But due to other issues, I haven't even tried their demo.) PureBasic's appearance scored higher than Power's, but PowerBasic's web site scored higher by a large margin in content.

Why does this matter? Well, I personally am not so interested in the whitewash. However, in general, when the details are there in the first impression, they are often there in the nitty gritty. If a web site has a 15 year old look, then it's obvious that little value is placed on appearances. While I may be fine with a text based window for personal use, users of my software will not. What I DO care about is how easy information is to access, and the quantity of that information. Pure's information was thin, so I'm digging deeper here.

[Tenaja]

The one link I found most valuable is the PureArea.net - Code Archive
I created my app under Windows and then ported the (mostly completed) code to Linux and finally to OSX.
Linux uses GTK+ for most of the underlying nuts & bolts. I have referenced them a couple of times in the Linux forums.
BTW, the forum's native search is rather sucky - a PB user has created add-on search based on Google that works with several browsers to search the forums here.
I also found Kale's book on PB invaluable.
I recently put my ~5300 line OSX code on my web page and referenced it in the OSX ...

Dave--thank you very much for this!

[Tenaja]

PureBasic's strength is more applications than games, if you ask me.

Of the users on the Power site who said they own both packages, they almost unanimously said they'd use Pure if they were coding a game. Apparently graphics and sound are--to them--Pure's strong points.

If you'd like to expound on your statement, Trond, I'd sure appreciate it.

[Fred]

That's because buildin PureBasic games libs, PowerBasic doesn't have any. Now, PureBasic has also big dedicated libs for applications, so you can use it for that as well (in a cross platform way, including native 64 bit...). Also, you seem to think that some users overreacted about your first post, but the experience shows than newcomers which create such posts almost always ends in flamewars. You are on the PureBasic support forum, no wonder if we take it seriously.

[TomS]

no wonder if we take it seriously.

Obviously nobody takes it seriously.
He had valid beginner questions and trond would have answered,
if it weren't for the question if purebasic is some kind of a "training-wheel compiler that people ditch after a year?",
which is also a valid question considering the fact that the origin of this question lays in the ways, how PB is presendet to potential customers.
Although many(most) of us have experienced the power of PureBasic and have grown fond of the language,
newbies to the language may not even consider using PB
after they found that the website is not properly maintained and fair questions are answered rudely in the forums.
Everybody understands and appreciates that whatever little time you have, you spend on PB.
But while you care about bugreports that concern two or three people or about a new feature how about spending a weekend on the website (or have someone do it for you).
People registering at the forums and opening threads about those issues usually don't have the intention to disrespect you.
Tenaja looked behind thefassade of the official website and tried PB anyway,
but he said, that some people might be scared away by the fact, that half the links on the website are dead.

Like someone said in another thread.

If the website is this messed up and 'buggy' how bad must the compiler be. Hands off this language.

How about you take them seriously.
With hints like this, those people try to help yout o get PB more popular and they are thanked with rude answers and are told to leave the forums...

If you don't want PB to be more popular or invest any of your precious time in marketing, fine.
But then please don't say you take it seriously when you really don't.

[KJ67]

Hi Tenaja!

I see that we may have similar targets, e.g. both aimed for industrial uses. I have been writing thermal models, chemical calculations & FTIR-spectra analyzes. The last one needs handles huge amount of data while running on cheap low cost laptop, so being able to do an efficient threading and is one of the points I like with PureBasic, some other is that I don’t a huge framework – just copy my small application to the desktop or chosen drawer.
PureBasic may have capability to do games, but that is not why I haven’t opened C# for a long time...

PS, don’t take the people here too serious. This forum "suffers" from being populated by people around the world and culture and languages often can be a little easy to misinterpret.

[Trond]

PureBasic's strength is more applications than games, if you ask me.

Of the users on the Power site who said they own both packages, they almost unanimously said they'd use Pure if they were coding a game. Apparently graphics and sound are--to them--Pure's strong points.

If you'd like to expound on your statement, Trond, I'd sure appreciate it.

For a game I'd use either an even higher-level tool (like Game Maker or Construct). PB's game libraries are a bit too low-level for my taste.

About graphics, PB has some very flexible 2d drawing functions which can also be used in applications if you need to draw something.

The PB IDE for all supported OSes is made with PureBasic, so you can see what kind of applications are possible.

He had valid beginner questions and trond would have answered,
if it weren't for the question if purebasic is some kind of a "training-wheel compiler that people ditch after a year?",

The reason I didn't answer was that I wasn't online (for once) .

[skywalk]

I went through this same ordeal when choosing between the various Basic offerings.
For me, PureBasic provided the more elegant solution.
I agree the documentation is slow to recover from the many new features and bug-fixes and given the size of the team this is to be expected.

My hope is that there is some way to make the Help Document Open Source?
Like a Wiki page?
It is a shame to squander the many many hands and eyeballs on this forum to help document errors and sample programs and whatever.
This forum is great, but searching is not more efficient than reading a manual.

And please delete or fix all broken links on the web page.

[TomS]

The reason I didn't answer was that I wasn't online (for once) .

Holy Sh.. I meant netmaestro. I'm sorry, Trond.

[Fred]

Links are fixed.

[luis]

My hope is that there is some way to make the Help Document Open Source?

I would like a way to cooperatively fix and enhance the help file. I would spend some time for that. There is a dedicated thread but it require months to see that reports reflected in the manual (if ever I must say.). Frankly I stopped to report errors there for now because I don't see the point in pile them up (and invest time in doing so).

[Trond]

The reason I didn't answer was that I wasn't online (for once) .

Holy Sh.. I meant netmaestro. I'm sorry, Trond.

At least my mind control seems to be working then. Sorry to embarrass you.

[utopiomania]

Tenaja, I wouldn't mind if you just leave the building. What a load of pompous bullshit. Are you
really King Louie The 14.tnth?

You are just another attention wh*re (sorry) IMHO.

There's no way you are going to register this language, so get lost, or prove me wrong.

Are you really sitting there in front of your old monitor watcing an xls sheet comparing your
various options.?

Really?? Sorry for beeing so harsh, but people like you is a waste of time.

PS (Post Scriptum) I'm looking forward to see what happens next I like to live on the edge!

[skywalk]

I would like a way to cooperatively fix and enhance the help file. I would spend some time for that. There is a dedicated thread but it require months to see that reports reflected in the manual (if ever I must say.). Frankly I stopped to report errors there for now because I don't see the point in pile them up (and invest time in doing so).

I agree. It would be immensely efficient for corrections to be made instead of requested.

And if someone screws up, that will get corrected also.

I cannot see the downside.