Two weeks and running... I like it!
Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2004 6:01 pm
First experiences with Pure Basic
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I though that some users of this forum might be interested in my experience as a new boy with Pure Basic. I purchased PB two weeks ago and have learned some of its many features, mainly working in free time in the evenings and at the weekends.
I have experience with various flavours of Basic starting with Commodore’s PET 2001 through the bigger PETs, C64, C128 and the 500 / 600 series. For the Commodore range I wrote an assembler in Basic and then used it to create its replacement all in assembler. I then used the assembler to write language extensions for the ROM based Basic and an English / Arabic word processor in a plug-in cartridge for the C64. (Last heard off being copied in a back street in Cairo!). I also wrote an auto-formatting editor for the assembler and similar utilities for the Basic. I can still program 6502 / 6509 assembler in my sleep!
Before trying Pure Basic on the PC I had used 16-bit GFA Basic for about eight years, Visual Basic for about two weeks (two too long!) and had a few months with Power Basic. The software I write nowadays is mainly to control lab equipment and configuration utilities for setting up and testing radio telemetry systems.
Why did I try Pure Basic? First, the 16 bit GFA system that has worked very well for me is showing its age. The most recent application I wrote with this language is 17,383 lines of code and grew over the last two years. I still add to it when new features are needed and I expect to support it for a year or two more. I now need my software to have the look and feel of more modern applications and this has become progressively more difficult with GFA. Also, although working with segmented memory is easy, it is so untidy; a proper 32-bit memory space is much easier to use when working with big file images.
I liked the style of Power Basic except for the editor; and that Power Basic pushes the user into using the API much too soon. I need a simple graphics capability, to draw graphs and to show sequences of pictures for use in test and maintenance jobs. I see nothing wrong with expecting a modern Basic to provide features to create an image, write text on it, and draw lines, shapes etc and then show the image on the screen. Power Basic could not do this natively. I expect access to the API when I need it; but not to perform simple tasks.
I like Pure Basic’s try-before-you-buy method of marketing. I tried, I liked and I bought; in just a few days.
Having programmed computers for many years I hold the view that the editor is the most underrated item. In think the standard editors provided to support Pure and Power Basics are letting their products down. It is interesting that both products have superior editors produced by enthusiastic users of the language. Taking the best features from Power Basic’s SED and Pure Basic’s jaPBe would result in a truly first class item. At present jaPBe is in front because it has automatic un-indent and effective auto-completion of Basic keywords, procedures, API calls and variable names. These features make writing source files less error prone. In my opinion GFA still has the best indent management; it can always be relied upon to correctly show nested structures, I hope that jaPBe will reach a similar level of refinement.
Pure Basic has some unconventional language features, I’m not saying they are right or wrong but, for example, what is wrong with INSTRING ? (With minor word variations.) Why be different for no apparent reason? INC x and DEC x are fairly standard, X+1 isn’t. I’m trying not to be critical of features that are just different, everyone senses a degree of annoyance when they first come across variation of what they consider normal! However, standards are a good thing.
As a learning project I set myself the task of reading a 60MB binary file from a telemetry receiver Multi Media Card, copying the card to disk, reading the file, analysing the content and displaying the result in graphical form with a “magnifying glassâ€
=====================
I though that some users of this forum might be interested in my experience as a new boy with Pure Basic. I purchased PB two weeks ago and have learned some of its many features, mainly working in free time in the evenings and at the weekends.
I have experience with various flavours of Basic starting with Commodore’s PET 2001 through the bigger PETs, C64, C128 and the 500 / 600 series. For the Commodore range I wrote an assembler in Basic and then used it to create its replacement all in assembler. I then used the assembler to write language extensions for the ROM based Basic and an English / Arabic word processor in a plug-in cartridge for the C64. (Last heard off being copied in a back street in Cairo!). I also wrote an auto-formatting editor for the assembler and similar utilities for the Basic. I can still program 6502 / 6509 assembler in my sleep!
Before trying Pure Basic on the PC I had used 16-bit GFA Basic for about eight years, Visual Basic for about two weeks (two too long!) and had a few months with Power Basic. The software I write nowadays is mainly to control lab equipment and configuration utilities for setting up and testing radio telemetry systems.
Why did I try Pure Basic? First, the 16 bit GFA system that has worked very well for me is showing its age. The most recent application I wrote with this language is 17,383 lines of code and grew over the last two years. I still add to it when new features are needed and I expect to support it for a year or two more. I now need my software to have the look and feel of more modern applications and this has become progressively more difficult with GFA. Also, although working with segmented memory is easy, it is so untidy; a proper 32-bit memory space is much easier to use when working with big file images.
I liked the style of Power Basic except for the editor; and that Power Basic pushes the user into using the API much too soon. I need a simple graphics capability, to draw graphs and to show sequences of pictures for use in test and maintenance jobs. I see nothing wrong with expecting a modern Basic to provide features to create an image, write text on it, and draw lines, shapes etc and then show the image on the screen. Power Basic could not do this natively. I expect access to the API when I need it; but not to perform simple tasks.
I like Pure Basic’s try-before-you-buy method of marketing. I tried, I liked and I bought; in just a few days.
Having programmed computers for many years I hold the view that the editor is the most underrated item. In think the standard editors provided to support Pure and Power Basics are letting their products down. It is interesting that both products have superior editors produced by enthusiastic users of the language. Taking the best features from Power Basic’s SED and Pure Basic’s jaPBe would result in a truly first class item. At present jaPBe is in front because it has automatic un-indent and effective auto-completion of Basic keywords, procedures, API calls and variable names. These features make writing source files less error prone. In my opinion GFA still has the best indent management; it can always be relied upon to correctly show nested structures, I hope that jaPBe will reach a similar level of refinement.
Pure Basic has some unconventional language features, I’m not saying they are right or wrong but, for example, what is wrong with INSTRING ? (With minor word variations.) Why be different for no apparent reason? INC x and DEC x are fairly standard, X+1 isn’t. I’m trying not to be critical of features that are just different, everyone senses a degree of annoyance when they first come across variation of what they consider normal! However, standards are a good thing.
As a learning project I set myself the task of reading a 60MB binary file from a telemetry receiver Multi Media Card, copying the card to disk, reading the file, analysing the content and displaying the result in graphical form with a “magnifying glassâ€
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