PureBasic Forums - English

Posted: **Fri Aug 26, 2005 7:09 pm**

thefool wrote:
Dare2 wrote: So: You cannot develop life-critical NASA shuttle-like apps with PureBasic.
why not..? currently a pb program written by me controls the daily rocket-launches from my garden. eh i know we are not talking human life but i have cats and dogs in the rocket and they are all alive [till i push the enter key then the rocket explodes..]

No you can't or maybe yes - if you check the assembler the compilator generates - line by line...

I've been involved in many life-critical projects, with aircraft steering systems and so - and let me tell you... None have used Windows as OS...

All projects have used special compilers for special CPUs, like Texas DSP or Motorola. The life-critical systems often have their own developed OS, special for that purpose.

And yes! If we used for example C or ADA, we DID check every assembly line the compiler generated. If we changed value of a constant, we did a binary diff of the executable, so only that constant had change.

Often we used two programming teams, programming in two different languages, but with the same specifikation. To get rid of the "cut & paste" bugs...

Posted: **Fri Aug 26, 2005 9:37 pm**

techjunkie wrote: I've been involved in many life-critical projects, with aircraft steering systems and so - and let me tell you... None have used Windows as OS... All projects have used special compilers for special CPUs, like Texas DSP or Motorola. The life-critical systems often have their own developed OS, special for that purpose.

And yes! If we used for example C or ADA, we DID check every assembly line the compiler generated. If we changed value of a constant, we did a binary diff of the executable, so only that constant had change.

Often we used two programming teams, programming in two different languages, but with the same specifikation. To get rid of the "cut & paste" bugs...

haha

hehe i want to see the face of the pilot if the computer gives him a blue screen in the display

Oh well. But i wonder, wouldnt it be more secure to use a special version of linux etc wich is far more tested than your home-made os?
U say they often have their own os. What are the choise if they dont?

and 2 languages. Was those Ada and C?

edit: Well reason i want to know about that is that these topics seems to interest me hehe

Posted: **Sat Aug 27, 2005 10:17 am**

thefool wrote:Oh well. But i wonder, wouldnt it be more secure to use a special version of linux etc wich is far more tested than your home-made os?
U say they often have their own os. What are the choise if they dont?

To be frank, none... It's a very minimal special OS integrated in the system, with watchdog timers, I/O and that kind of stuff.

thefool wrote: and 2 languages. Was those Ada and C?

Sometimes Fortran <-> C, Fortran <-> ADA... Still, much work on VAX/VMS in this kind of industry and reuse of old code.

I was involved in one project, there we got code from NASA and the spaceshuttle to reuse.

Hmmm... we better start a new thread in Off Topic...

Posted: **Sat Aug 27, 2005 10:39 am**

okasvi wrote:I bet that other PB users have had situations like this.
What is the way you get others to fall in love with PB? (i know they do if they give it fair try, but its just that how to get them to try it )

Well, it's true some other coders are very ignorant and unpersuadable, but I argued someone into PureBasic, because PureBasic has much better Buffermanagement(sure c++ has one, but you can not use a part of a structure, you can just use the whole structure).

Uhm and yeah it's true: the industry just uses java and c++ mostly.

Posted: **Sat Aug 27, 2005 11:17 am**

techjunkie wrote:
thefool wrote:Oh well. But i wonder, wouldnt it be more secure to use a special version of linux etc wich is far more tested than your home-made os?
U say they often have their own os. What are the choise if they dont?
To be frank, none... It's a very minimal special OS integrated in the system, with watchdog timers, I/O and that kind of stuff.

thefool wrote: and 2 languages. Was those Ada and C?
Sometimes Fortran <-> C, Fortran <-> ADA... Still, much work on VAX/VMS in this kind of industry and reuse of old code.

I was involved in one project, there we got code from NASA and the spaceshuttle to reuse.

Hmmm... we better start a new thread in Off Topic...

maybe instead of hijacking this thread hehe
Spaceshuttle code

All of their systems are programmed for them?

Posted: **Thu Sep 08, 2005 7:17 pm**

Fred has wisely, I think, chosen to stay clear of this topic. But if he is listening...

Fred, to gain more respect for PureBasic (respect that it surely already deserves), why not change the name to P++ (or some other non-BASIC name like Pure-o-Matic Turbo...

) once the full OOP capabilities have been added?

Maybe then people will not pre-judge (people who do not know anything previously about PB) it. Sure, it will never be everything to everyone: People will always be able to find something 'missing'. But they will see, by example, that the syntax is simultaneously flexible, powerful AND easy to learn.

What more could anyone want?

Russell

p.s. On the previous discussion: Ultimately, isn't everything executed in machine code? Even interpreted code can't run directly on 99.9% of processors (the previously mentioned FORTH processor can run FORTH code directly, apparently).

Posted: **Thu Sep 08, 2005 8:44 pm**

It was the nice clear syntax of PureBasic that enticed me to have a go at programming. I had no training (apart from reading a book about MS Access) but could figure out alot of what was going on just by reading other peoples sample code.

If the first code I had ever seen was C++ I would never even have tried.

Posted: **Fri Sep 09, 2005 3:25 am**

I like PB a lot, it's a fun language to use. Maybe this is the wrong reason to like a language, but what the hell.

Posted: **Fri Sep 09, 2005 10:44 pm**

I too make a very good living with PB. My full-time job is writing software in PB!

I also do software on the side in PB for industry (in fact one client I convinced to let me rewrite a program I had written previously in another BASIC. I sold them on the fact that we could get rid of the runtime (1m+) and the SLL and DLL files. I could also easily add some features to it that would be very difficult in the other BASICs. They bought it and I rewrote the thing from scratch in PB in half the time! The exe was about 30k--I think).

I've been programming in BASIC since my TRS-80. I've written lots of useful code for industry and for fun. I wrote a program that controlled a Weber grill for Weber-Stephens. It opened and closed gas values, read weight from a strain-gage---everthing!

I'm no guru, just resourceful. The great thing about PB is that I can create stand-alone modules in days. Modular programming is very useful. Big general workhorses have their place, but a suite of small modules can do even more. Modules have the advantage of not needing setup and they are simple (almost intuitive) to learn for the user. PB is great for creating modules (my modules even query large dbases like FileMaker and they work seemlessly with CAD programs).

I started with Liberty BASIC as my first of the VB clones. It was nice and a lot like the old BASIC I knew, but that's all it wants to be (BASIC). Anything really exciting requires lots of API calls (even simple stuff like accessing the clipboard, statusbars and ListIconGadgets).

I tried IBasic next but the syntax was too quirky. The listicon demo is 230 lines long! They don't have simple built-in requestors and creating just a InputRequestor took me about a day (with help) and saving pointers--yuck! The learning curve was just too great! The learning curve for PB was very short (that's money right there).

So viva la PB and Fred (how's your health?). No more parties....get back to work!

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks.

Posted: **Sat Sep 10, 2005 12:38 am**

I sold them on the fact that we could get rid of the runtime (1m+) and the SLL and DLL files.

Hehe, I like Carl Gundel a lot, but Liberty BASIC is the SLOWEST Windows BASIC variant out there, and LB 3 & 4 are more bloated (larger runtimes) than VB 6.

Posted: **Sat Sep 10, 2005 3:54 am**

I like Carl Gundel a lot, but Liberty BASIC is the SLOWEST Windows BASIC variant out there, and LB 3 & 4 are more bloated (larger runtimes) than VB 6.

I know, I like Carl too (the whole gang over there are great). The problem is Carl is so enchanted with the old form of BASIC that he can't see past it. He would say that PB is not BASIC because, to him, it doesn't look like BASIC.

The irony is, he'd say that PB is too complex. He doesn't think a language should have so many commands. LB relies on API calls to do most of the useful stuff (what's more complex?). It takes a whole paragraph to get text from the clipboard. With LB you send messages to textboxes, like:

Code: Select all

print #Textbox1, "!contents? Value$"

Where "Value$" is the variable that the textbox contents go to. Not as clear as:

Code: Select all

Value.s = GetGadgetText(#Textbox1)

I was sorry to leave LB, but it was for the best. With PB I can code with fewer variables, lines and time!

Posted: **Sat Sep 10, 2005 4:33 pm**

Stay away from LB - just my advice.

Posted: **Mon Sep 12, 2005 9:30 pm**

Carl has one benefit over much of the competition and that is his dedication to education. LB has always had a very nice educational license, you buy one copy and you can use it for the entire classroom. I used to use LB in the PAL program I teach, however a couple of years ago, I switched to DB classic. Yeah, I know DB, UGH!!, but DB Classic has always been provided FREE to educational programs. And DB's BASIC is a lot more "standard" than what LB's BASIC is.

Posted: **Mon Sep 12, 2005 9:51 pm**

I watched this therad from a distance now and am amazed which turns this thread are getting...

Im satisfied with the simplicity and "close-at-hand" PureBasic offers.

Im so totally not in need of a lifecritical language, a superfast compiler nor a "can do it all" language.

Sometimes coders (or most times) do actually dont see how they are stuck in the past trying to optimize their small apps to not use more than half a Mb of memory when it WAS necessary years ago but not now.
Also optimizing code to perfection so it renders all calculations in 4 mSec instead of 50 is also a typical "coder" thing that actually could be compromised tonadays.
I dont say optimizing is bad but somehow you need to see WHERE you need it and where you actually can look at the goal instead and take the fastest road there.

Basic has ALWAYS been a wonderful language to take us to from idea to finished product in shortest amount of time. I mean it is not the most advanced 3d-games we are dealing with here. We mostly are swapping around strings and variables and maybe making some game converted from a time where it HAD to be optimized. I say let creativity flow instead where you actually can afford it.

Noone died of ugly code... especially not when noone else can see it

Posted: **Mon Sep 12, 2005 10:53 pm**

AJirenius wrote:Noone died of ugly code... especially not when noone else can see it

HeHe.

True.

And thats a wrap, as they say in the movie industry.

Or is it meat packaging industry?

PureBasic Forums - English

How to proove that PB doesnt suck |:

Re: How to proove that PB doesnt suck |:

Why PB rocks

Liberty BASIC.