PureBasic Forums - English

MicroStream wrote: Wed Jan 28, 2026 8:23 am Pascal/Delphi, Smalltalk or Ruby also offer extremely good code quality here.

I have been working a bit on FreePascal/Lazarus, it is good compiler and fast too ... Smalltalk that is never i used but Ruby is quite good to work but my knowledge is limited from it

MicroStream wrote: Wed Jan 28, 2026 8:23 am Personally, I would never use languages ​​like Java, Haskell, Erlang or Rust because their source code is so ugly that it's not fun to work with.

Yeah Java is very good for me, used quite a lot for raytracing it is very cool , so Haskell and Erlang is worse language for me and i never understood that

Rust has some tendency to make a competition to C++, fast, safe memory and grow very fast from community ! This compiler i have used a lot too but not much as Purebasic, Rust has less freedom cause you need to care memory from compiler and not to programmer

threedslider wrote: Wed Jan 28, 2026 4:37 pm Yeah Java is very good for me, used quite a lot for ray-tracing it is very cool, so Haskell and Erlang is worse language for me and I never understood that.

If you like Java for some reason, that's okay, but I still see a contradiction here. Java has a very similar syntax to C/C++, the appearance is identical, and the two languages ​​could even be confused at first glance. But let's go back in time first: what made Java so interesting from the beginning? It was the ability to program in an object-oriented way, just like with Smalltalk! However, Smalltalk was developed earlier in 1972 at Xerox PARC and, thanks to the necessary resources, was only able to open up to a wider audience in 1997. Unfortunately, this revival only lasted about two years, until 1998, when Java suddenly and unexpectedly appeared (1995) on the horizon. This has limited the popularity of Smalltalk and almost killed it. Smalltalk never had a major advertising campaign. From the beginning, the language had a rather academic basis and was primarily used in universities. Smalltalk is powerful and the code is clean and easy to read, which is why I prefer it to Java.

threedslider wrote: Wed Jan 28, 2026 4:37 pm Rust has some tendency to make a competition to C++, fast, safe memory and grows very fast from its community! This compiler I have used a lot too but not so much as PureBasic, Rust offers less freedom, as memory management must be handled by the compiler and not the programmer.

Rust has only become such a hot topic lately because one of the most powerful companies in the world has advertised it: Mozilla! Project developer Graydon Hoare naturally recognises this as the opportunity of a lifetime and is doing everything he can to make it a huge success. I'm not impressed at all, Rust has degenerated into a mere fashion language, and at some point interest in it will wane, just like with all its predecessors. The code, the name, and the logo are ugly, I absolutely cannot stand it.

The same thing happened, for example, at Apple when they presented Swift to the world as an in-house development in 2014. And today, who still talks about Swift as the "ultimate" programming language, besides Apple? No one! Apart from that, the syntax is again very similar to C/C++.

Actually, this is a programming language that does not require an additional framework or additional runtime library.

This does not include Java, Python and DotNet ...

MicroStream wrote: Thu Jan 29, 2026 2:09 am Smalltalk is powerful and the code is clean and easy to read, which is why I prefer it to Java.

One important point I would like to explicitly emphasise here is that this is not about the technical capabilities of various programming languages, but solely about code quality. To avoid misunderstandings: My comparison does not mean that the languages ​​I reject are bad, practically all of them are powerful and have their strengths and weaknesses. What I haven't mentioned yet is that Smalltalk, in contrast to Java and Ruby, exclusively uses OOP as its sole paradigm, while the other two are multi-paradigm languages.

Regarding Python, I would like to emphasise once again that the user community is still waiting for a JIT-compiler. Once this is available, the language structure will fundamentally change and an interpreter will no longer be needed.

Like almost everyone here, I love PureBasic because it has a number of outstanding qualities that you unfortunately don't find everywhere. That's logically also the reason why I'm here!

MicroStream wrote: Wed Jan 28, 2026 8:23 amPersonally, I would never use languages ​​like Java, Haskell, Erlang or Rust because their source code is so ugly that it's not fun to work with.

Perhaps, you might want to try APL ?

MicroStream wrote: Thu Jan 29, 2026 2:09 am Rust has only become such a hot topic lately because one of the most powerful companies in the world has advertised it: Mozilla! Project developer Graydon Hoare naturally recognises this as the opportunity of a lifetime and is doing everything he can to make it a huge success. I'm not impressed at all, Rust has degenerated into a mere fashion language, and at some point interest in it will wane, just like with all its predecessors. The code, the name, and the logo are ugly, I absolutely cannot stand it.

Haha ! Yeah but I admit that Rust is somewhat very powerful as C++, I have compared this https://www.rs-pbrt.org/ and https://pbrt.org/, I say it is identical for Pathtracer except some delay in speed and color output

I like the syntax for Rust but yeah it is somewhat weird to code so overall it is fun too ... One thing is Rust can't to replace to C++ and C++ shine for a long time again ahead in futur

Skipper wrote: Fri Jan 30, 2026 12:37 pm Perhaps, you might want to try APL ?

What it is APL ?

threedslider wrote: Fri Jan 30, 2026 1:12 pmWhat it is APL ?

Annoyingly Pretty Language

Piero wrote: Fri Jan 30, 2026 1:23 pm

threedslider wrote: Fri Jan 30, 2026 1:12 pmWhat it is APL ?

Annoyingly Pretty Language

Never heard this language

threedslider wrote: Fri Jan 30, 2026 1:28 pmNever heard this language

Embe'? ("so what?" in Italian)

threedslider wrote: Fri Jan 30, 2026 1:28 pm

Piero wrote: Fri Jan 30, 2026 1:23 pm

threedslider wrote: Fri Jan 30, 2026 1:12 pmWhat it is APL ?

Annoyingly Pretty Language

Never heard this language

Heard of, but never used - "A Programming Language". My first language was PLAN - anyone here remember that?

But back to topic - important factors for me choosing PureBasic was its fantastic ability to make small, self-contained executables and easy to use the IDE on old recycled PCs. Genuinely Eco-friendly! Nice readable code also a huge bonus.

deeproot wrote: Fri Jan 30, 2026 2:18 pm Heard of, but never used - "A Programming Language". My first language was PLAN - anyone here remember that?

But back to topic - important factors for me choosing PureBasic was its fantastic ability to make small, self-contained executables and easy to use the IDE on old recycled PCs. Genuinely Eco-friendly! Nice readable code also a huge bonus.

Yeah I see that, even in this link : https://xpqz.github.io/learnapl/intro.html ... I read this it look like to basic and C++ as mix but it has a weird for syntax

This language is underrated

Again PLAN, never heard of it

My first language was Atari ST Basic but used little, I was very young to understand that and then later I have used Cygnus C++ in 1998, it was great for learning

And then discovered to Purebasic, I was impressed by that too ... It is good choice for me

miso wrote: Wed Jan 28, 2026 10:03 am

MicroStream wrote: Wed Jan 28, 2026 8:23 am

minimy wrote: Wed Jan 21, 2026 2:18 am For the use I give it, I put aside many languages that are supposed to be superior a long time ago. Currently PHP, JS, C/C++ and some Python, but I have to admit that I don't like them, they don't make me feel as comfortable as with PureBasic. Every time I have shown it to friends and students who come from other languages, it has been love at first sight. Its mix of simplicity and power is unrivalled.

The technical characteristics of a programming language are certainly an important factor, but the quality of the code and its readability are, in my opinion, even more important. You are right about PHP, JavaScript, C/C++ and many others, but not Python. Python has inherited many features from Basic, making it one of the easiest languages ​​to learn. The code is clearly readable and sometimes almost self-explanatory. The only disadvantage I see so far is the lack of a JIT-compiler. Therefore, so far the only option is to use the PyPy compiler, which was specifically developed for this purpose. But Python is certainly not the only alternative in this regard; Pascal/Delphi, Smalltalk or Ruby also offer extremely good code quality here. Personally, I would never use languages ​​like Java, Haskell, Erlang or Rust because their source code is so ugly that it's not fun to work with.

It always depends on what you want to do with it and how efficiently the compiler processes and, if necessary, optimises the machine code. Most modern languages ​​also allow the integration of assembly routines, which may make the code appear much more compact.

I'm not fond of Python. The code itself truely look nice, but for me, thats all. If I write a program in PB, it can run on a clean Windows install (with its drivers), has very fast binary executable (the marketing purepower isn't just marketing) while offering easy creation and handle of windows, gadgets,
databases, networking and graphics capabilities. If I prototype in PB, it quickly goes ugly (but I will have fast results that can be organized if its worthy)

Pythons only advantage that it is widely used as script or interface, I can't really name an other...

I completely agree, I was working with Python but it is not very friendly, you need external libraries and many other things that I don't like. I use Python a few times with Linux and Raspberry, but now we have Purebasic on Raspy, I don't need more Python at the moment.
In my opinion, if Fred and the team continue with pb, in a short time it will be recognized as the best option for quick work and for any type of results.

In my opinion, if Fred and the team continue with pb, in a short time it will be recognized as the best option for quick work and for any type of results.

Maybe, if they add some common sense 'modern' syntax quality of life improvements. PB can be quite verbose in certain scenarios where there is no reason to be.

Since Purebasic will never be an object oriented language and because it costs money, it will never be a best option for modern projects, and even less for OpenSource projects. Also the syntax is very clunky and there could be more syntactic sugar in some areas.
But still: I like the way Purebasic is going.