Which is the most popular BASIC dialect now.?

[Mohawk70]

RealStudio change the name to Xojo Inc (the 4 june 2013)

http://www.xojo.com/

realsoftware.com | Creation Date : 14-MAR-1998 | Expiration Date : 13-MAR-2016
xojo.com | Creation Date : 04-MAY-2002 | Expiration Date : 04-MAY-2014
realstudio.com | Creation Date : JUL-05-2003 | Expiration Date : JUL-05-2021

Interesting - notice the order of registration dates of the last two ( and via the same registrar )
according to a quick whois check on all three domains. Wondering if they were all originally registered by REAL Software, Inc. ?

[yoxola]

You may have a look at FreeBasic & QB64 a bit more, as their codebase can include the whole "Quick Basic", which is a nice advantage.

However I've been using PueBasic for a long while and won't switch.

[tj1010]

From what I've seen most* people only use PB for tool development. The others have poor documentation and are not as streamline with API, Assembler etc..

Most mentioned here are also proprietary, so most numbers you'll find mostly represent software piracy... Even though index count means little considering how links are indexed and how keyword phrases are handled..

[Kruno]

PureBasic does seem to have the most active community. I went through a few Basics, wanting to get back into simpler times, and PureBasic has good docs, and simpler, but well done language constructs. The others don't tend to get updated often or have very strange claims on their websites.

QB64 is also a very good BASIC. I would put PureBasic and QB64 on the same level for my current purposes, but PB seems to be getting frequent updates, and module support sometime in the hopefully not to distant future, and PB is not going to have issues of language complexity. The QB64 developer is also concentrating on adding "modern" features such as OOP and whatnot.

[Zach]

What kind of strange claims?

[Kruno]

What kind of strange claims?

About the products themselves, just visit a few of the more active BASIC web sites to see them. It may just be how they are presented and those products may meet those claims, but it really turned me off.

PureBasic has a more professional feel to it, website and documentation.

[Shield]

Some years ago there were ridiculous claims about PureBasic too,
at least they weren't made by Fred. Master Creating anyone?

[Kuron]

What kind of strange claims?

Visit the HotBasic site for a perfect example. Make sure you go to the bathroom first or you might wet your pants laughing so hard.

[tj1010]

I actually thought people only used these for system tools and light automation, else why buy a BASIC compiler that costs $100+ per developer?


I always got a kick out of the programming languages that supposedly speed up 3D game development. It only shows how ignorant people are to marketing,, in addition to how little they've actually tried at anything before just buying products for it. 3D libs for C++ have almost identical type handling and turn-around, it's the dinosaur pipelines in animation and modeling that make a game take years, animation UIs, like the ones in blender and maya, are the same as they were in the early nineties with other tools...

Only speaking as someone who pays bills with programming and design...

[Tenaja]

I actually thought people only used these for system tools and light automation, else why buy a BASIC compiler that costs $100+ per developer?

Recent (informal) polls and other discussions on this board have revealed two things about the users...
Most of the users here are NOT beginners to programming.
Most of the users started with basic in the 6502 era, or have moved from a 90's version of basic like VB6.

The ironic thing about that is Fred strongly holds to the ideals of this being a beginners language. In today's age, however, most school-age kids (i.e. the "real" beginners will download FreeBasic, Python, Java or some other similar version, because of the price.

[tj1010]

I actually thought people only used these for system tools and light automation, else why buy a BASIC compiler that costs $100+ per developer?

Recent (informal) polls and other discussions on this board have revealed two things about the users...
Most of the users here are NOT beginners to programming.
Most of the users started with basic in the 6502 era, or have moved from a 90's version of basic like VB6.

The ironic thing about that is Fred strongly holds to the ideals of this being a beginners language. In today's age, however, most school-age kids (i.e. the "real" beginners will download FreeBasic, Python, Java or some other similar version, because of the price.

Languages are just tools, PB allows easy assembler and api access and has active development. Anyone obsessing over languages probably doesn't have much going on...

[Psychophanta]

Which is the most popular BASIC dialect now.?

MS Visual Basic

[es_91]

Which is the second most popular BASIC dialect now?

PureBasic.

[TI-994A]

Needless to say, when it comes to BASIC compilers, I'm totally impartial to PureBasic. Regardless of what the numbers may say, in my book PureBasic is the best!

QB64 is also a very good BASIC.

I'm not familiar with QB64, but I was surprised to note that in addition to Windows, OSX and Linux, it now compiles for Android as well. Quite similar to GLBasic, but still nowhere near PureBasic in terms of power and professionalism. IMHO.