PureBasic Forums - English

I have been programming off and on for over 20 years now. I started with Basic on the C-64, then moved to Basica, GWBasic, Turbo Pascal... You get the picture.

Well over the last few years I have written mainly web applications via PHP and Perl. When I needed to write GUI local apps I would use (ugh) VB 6. I stated learning .NET but I hated it.

Recently I have played with Liberty Basic, iBasic and PureBasic. I love the simplicity behind PureBasic. I don't like all the extra work that I would run into with Liberty and iBasic making API calls.

I just purchased PureBasic back last week. I am already making simple little apps that would have taken me ten times as long with the other mentioned languages.

From what I see PureBasic is just as, if not more powerful than the other Basic-like languages out there. But yet it has the ability to be very simple and quick to learn. If I want to message with lower ASM and API stuff I can, but if I just want to make a quick and dirty GUI I can do that as well.

I guess my reason for positing this is to A) express my happiness with purchasing PureBasic (and the third party PureVisionXP app). I think it is the best money I have spent in a long time. And B) to give a quick comparison with other languages out there...

Recently when I decided to move away from Visual Basic to another Basic environment I did what most people would do and did a search for "best basic compiler" on Google. I came across basic.mindteq.com/ which I found a number of Basic languages reviewed. PureBasic rated the highest of all the listed compilers.

Previously I had used Liberty Basic. Though I think Carl has a nice program for the money, I hated all the long winded API calls. Carl really doesn't like adding new commands. Which I think is the crux of his compiler.

iBasic while power, still isn't nearly as simple and easy to use as PureBasic. As mentioned elsewhere you can develop similar applications with PureBasic with a lot less code than you would need with iBasic.

I would love to see the community keep on growing. I think that from what I can see PureBasic has the best and one of the largest Basic communities out there.

In closing for those of you that are going back and forth between spending your good money on Liberty Basic, iBasic or PureBasic, I want to say that I don't think you could go wrong by going with PureBasic.

I have found a lot of good documentation on the fourms for PureBasic. I would love to see that PDF expanded on with maybe more samples. There are a great number of other resoures like http://www.xs4all.nl/~bluez/datatalk/purebasic.htm and http://www.reelmediaproductions.com/pb/ ... guide.html.

I think that clear consise documentation is the key to winning over people from Liberty and iBasic communities. When they can clearly see how simple and powerful PureBasic is, and have very defined documentation I assure you that they will come over in droves. One of the best things I noticed with Liberty and iBasic was that they both have very detailed and through documentation. While of course one of the reasons that they have so much more documentation is because they require more work to do the same thing that PureBasic looks to be able to do in much less.

So as a complete newbie to the PureBasic community I would like to say Thanks for such a great product. My only request would be to continue to work hard all you PureBasic experts to document, document and document.

Michael,

It is the simplicity that sets PureBasic apart. I think a lot of people miss this.

For me it feels like PureBasic gives you back your computer.

By stripping away all the layers of abstraction it manages to give you more freedom and flexibility while making things simpler.

Nicely put and I agree with you totally.

I also registered LibertyBasic some time before discovering PB and found it easy to learn, but hard to get good results with as it lacked the power of PB. The way programs had to be compiled with the runtime engine was irritating to me and I eventually gave up.

PB is a fantastic language and more than capable of producing any type of program I could want.

The documentation is a lot better these days and these forums are a great resource because of the the friendliness and enthusiasm of the members. If the sheer volume of info here could be incorporated into the main documentation and made a bit more beginner friendly, I agree that more people will convert to PB. I've said this before, many times, and will no doubt keep droning on about it

Welcome to the community and have fun

Jim

I agree.

GedB wrote:Michael,

It is the simplicity that sets PureBasic apart. I think a lot of people miss this.

Thanks Jimbo_H. I agree that you can find answers to just about anything in the forums. Like you said if someone knowledgeable could put a lot of the more popular questions and answers together that would be a wonderful resource. I notice on this and other language boards that newbies often upset more experienced people when they post a question that has already been asked. But speaking from experience myself, a lot of times if you are not closely familar with a product you may just not be searching for the right thing.

I ran into this when I was trying to search for some information about some of the Gadget commands. After spending a good amount of time I finally found what I was looking for. I had been searching for the wrong thing.

However I don't want to knock the Purebasic support documents that are out there. I do think they are very good. But the better they are made, and as you stated if some of the examples could be compiled into one source, I think that is when users of Liberty and IBasic will fully see the light and head this way.

Of course the afore mentioned compilers use the API so heavily that their documentation is sometimes practically a quote for quote from the Microsoft API/Namespace FAQs.

I am happy to be a part of this growing community and look forward to being a advocate for PureBasic and evangelizing it every chance I get.

Jimbo_H wrote:Nicely put and I agree with you totally.

I also registered LibertyBasic some time before discovering PB and found it easy to learn, but hard to get good results with as it lacked the power of PB. The way programs had to be compiled with the runtime engine was irritating to me and I eventually gave up.

PB is a fantastic language and more than capable of producing any type of program I could want.

The documentation is a lot better these days and these forums are a great resource because of the the friendliness and enthusiasm of the members. If the sheer volume of info here could be incorporated into the main documentation and made a bit more beginner friendly, I agree that more people will convert to PB. I've said this before, many times, and will no doubt keep droning on about it

Welcome to the community and have fun

Jim

@mlwhitt:

I definately can second that what you write And in addition to using things
like inline assembler and / or WinAPI it is not that hard to write / use your own
libraries with C and/or ASM.

Btw... welcome on board

Though I haven't gotten to that point, I look forward to when I am. One of the other compilers I mentioned above flaunt a lot about their ASM intergration, but it is very lacking if you ask them.

During my testing the other compilers they would brag about this and that, but when you would attempt to utilize them, they would fail or give varying results. So far everything I have messed with in PureBasic has performed as stated and usually even better. Also everything that PureBasic says it can do that I have tested has worked. Unlike some of the other compilers that have demos that don't even work without modifying them. Ha Ha.

I don't say this to bash the other compilers, but just to clearly state that I am so excited that I am now using PureBasic. I only wish I heard about it sooner. Which by the way seems to be what many people have to say around here.

benny wrote:@mlwhitt:

I definately can second that what you write And in addition to using things
like inline assembler and / or WinAPI it is not that hard to write / use your own
libraries with C and/or ASM.

Btw... welcome on board

mlwhitt wrote:Thanks Jimbo_H. I agree that you can find answers to just about anything in the forums. Like you said if someone knowledgeable could put a lot of the more popular questions and answers together that would be a wonderful resource. I notice on this and other language boards that newbies often upset more experienced people when they post a question that has already been asked. But speaking from experience myself, a lot of times if you are not closely familar with a product you may just not be searching for the right thing.
I ran into this when I was trying to search for some information about some of the Gadget commands. After spending a good amount of time I finally found what I was looking for. I had been searching for the wrong thing.

Yes, it's knowing what to search for that caused me a lot of headaches at the beginning. PB, just like any other language has its own unique commands that can be very confusing to those not familiar with them. Once you get used to these, it's generally easy to find what you need.

At the beginning, this almost put me off PB completely. I'm very happy to say I persevered (eventually) and now can't get enough of PB. I need a fix every day

Fortunately, this community is friendly enough so you won't be flamed for posting dumb questions that have been answered many times before (as I know only too well!) and someone will always point you in the right direction.

Jim

I agree. That was the only thing that *almost* caused me not to purchase PureBasic and go with iBasic instead. I thought iBasic had better documentation. But luckly I was smart enough to realize that PureBasic looked like it would be easier to learn. Community wise I think all three of the basic communities we have mentioned here are good. When I used Liberty, I thought they had a good community. Even though I wasn't part of the iBasic community it looks like it is a fairly close community as well.

That being said, PureBasic has just as good if not better than the other two which is a lot to be said since both of the other two communities are very good in their own right.

At the beginning, this almost put me off PB completely.

Welcome

Thank you.

Fred wrote:Welcome

Welcome, and yes you are right PureBasic is wonderful.

Well, mlwhitt you put it about as good as I ever could. I must be in the same car you are in or something.

I dabbled with VB 6 for a year and a half and then shortly thereafter came .NET and ... well... no sir, it's not for me!

PB and Autoplay Media Studio 5.x handle all of my application/CD/DVD/ROM activities now.

So, I am the one to welcome aboard P.B. (and I hope the other way around too).

Follow-up...

I have since created a few .dlls and .exe's that I use inside of my Autoplay Media Studio 5 programs. I have had comments and PM's stating how happy folks are about the speed and ease-of-use these PB creations have been.

I only wish that my AMS 5 .exe's loaded up so fast and offered access to APIs (at least to the Windows API set).

I'm still working my way (3/4 now) through the manual I printed off for PB (thanks Fred for getting that .pdf file out).

Summarizing...

PB definitely is (to me) worth the price and taking the time to understand.

I look forward to a long relationship with this platform and even testing PB creations on my Slackware Linux box!


Also, to show my support even further I am willing to start donating 5 or 10 bucks (USD) per month, to offset the cost of serving up this Website. I hope others would offer such support as well. Thank you to those that share, freely, large code chunks to help us new users out!

I too look forward to developing some applications for my linux boxes.

Intrigued wrote:Follow-up...

I have since created a few .dlls and .exe's that I use inside of my Autoplay Media Studio 5 programs. I have had comments and PM's stating how happy folks are about the speed and ease-of-use these PB creations have been.

I only wish that my AMS 5 .exe's loaded up so fast and offered access to APIs (at least to the Windows API set).

I'm still working my way (3/4 now) through the manual I printed off for PB (thanks Fred for getting that .pdf file out).

Summarizing...

PB definitely is (to me) worth the price and taking the time to understand.

I look forward to a long relationship with this platform and even testing PB creations on my Slackware Linux box!


Also, to show my support even further I am willing to start donating 5 or 10 bucks (USD) per month, to offset the cost of serving up this Website. I hope others would offer such support as well. Thank you to those that share, freely, large code chunks to help us new users out!