Pure Basic 14 months on...
Posted: Tue Dec 20, 2005 9:27 pm
My year with Pure Basic
I made my first programs with PB in September 2004 and posted my initial reactions. At the time I wrote:
“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.”
OK, over a year later and not much has changed! I thought that some of you might be interested in what I have achieved in the last year, during which I have used PB extensively to achieve real world requirements, often against unforgiving deadlines. I’m not trying to blow my own horn but rather I want to trumpet loud and clear that Pure Basic is a powerful and effective tool for producing software in a commercial environment.
First and foremost, I found that jaPBe is the single most important tool to use with PB. This editor has intelligent indenting, auto complete and folding functions make it a joy to use and it increases my productivity substantially. If you do not already use jaPBe then I recommend you download it and use it; it’s free.
I have almost completed an instrument manager that includes a two channel oscilloscope, a 16-channel data logger, an FFT display, sound sample replay and TV image reconstruction from the video signal. The ‘scope and FFT work continuously and interactively, as the waveform is drawn the frequency domain display is re-computed and also shown. Sliding cursors around on the ‘scope provides the spectrum of different parts of captured waveforms. There are multiple measurement cursors and remote control functions for other instruments. The digital display section includes word search and trigger functions. At present this program is simulating its own input; in 2006 I get to work on importing the data from a data capture module over a USB port. This program currently clocks in at 6,400 lines and works, as far as I can tell, perfectly; certainly better than all the competitors I have managed to download.
I have produced several iterations of a data display program that analyses telemetry data stored on Multi Media Cards. This program travels all over the world and works reliably and well on client’s PCs. The latest version combines graphical plots and many filing and report generating functions and tips the scale at about 8,400 lines of source code.
A microprocessor programming utility was completed, a mere several hundred lines, but caused a headache because it really needed 64 bit arithmetic for some functions involved with encrypting data to prevent end users from using versions they were not authorised to use. This program has been used by end users who know very little about computers (and care less) and has been proved to be reliable.
Several other programs for configuring camera equipment and tracking assembly line tools (which included reading bar codes) have also reached the state where they just get used; without any hassle.
In summary, using Pure Basic I have achieved the goals I set out to achieve and the end results have been effective and reliable. The PB forum has been an excellent resource with friendly and helpful advice given whenever I have asked a question; thanks to everyone who has helped and I hope to make useful contributions myself when I feel able.
The MVCOM serial comms package just works. It’s boring. No excitement. It just sits there. Working. You can’t say much better than that.
The PureColor library has added a touch of refinement to several jobs and PureZip has reduced the size of files I move around; both of these are excellent items to use.
In the last year I could have used 64 bit integer arithmetic to advantage and 8-byte floats would have helped on a few occasions. I have written my own functions that I miss from GFA and hope that we will get a better CASE command at some point in the future.
I’m in a room with ‘C’ and assembler programmers and they have given up mentioning the low price point of PB and commenting “What do you expect for such a low price?”; they envy the jaPBe editor and trawl the web for effective equivalents for their own languages ..and the results PB produces silences other comments!
From my perspective as an old registered Amiga developer and still owning almost a complete set of Amiga hardware I think Fred should let the Amiga environment gracefully fade away.
Thank you Fred, for Pure Basic; have a good Xmas and may 2006 be for you and all Pure Basic users a happy and successful year.
Cheers everyone…
Glug, glug glug, hick!
I made my first programs with PB in September 2004 and posted my initial reactions. At the time I wrote:
“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.”
OK, over a year later and not much has changed! I thought that some of you might be interested in what I have achieved in the last year, during which I have used PB extensively to achieve real world requirements, often against unforgiving deadlines. I’m not trying to blow my own horn but rather I want to trumpet loud and clear that Pure Basic is a powerful and effective tool for producing software in a commercial environment.
First and foremost, I found that jaPBe is the single most important tool to use with PB. This editor has intelligent indenting, auto complete and folding functions make it a joy to use and it increases my productivity substantially. If you do not already use jaPBe then I recommend you download it and use it; it’s free.
I have almost completed an instrument manager that includes a two channel oscilloscope, a 16-channel data logger, an FFT display, sound sample replay and TV image reconstruction from the video signal. The ‘scope and FFT work continuously and interactively, as the waveform is drawn the frequency domain display is re-computed and also shown. Sliding cursors around on the ‘scope provides the spectrum of different parts of captured waveforms. There are multiple measurement cursors and remote control functions for other instruments. The digital display section includes word search and trigger functions. At present this program is simulating its own input; in 2006 I get to work on importing the data from a data capture module over a USB port. This program currently clocks in at 6,400 lines and works, as far as I can tell, perfectly; certainly better than all the competitors I have managed to download.
I have produced several iterations of a data display program that analyses telemetry data stored on Multi Media Cards. This program travels all over the world and works reliably and well on client’s PCs. The latest version combines graphical plots and many filing and report generating functions and tips the scale at about 8,400 lines of source code.
A microprocessor programming utility was completed, a mere several hundred lines, but caused a headache because it really needed 64 bit arithmetic for some functions involved with encrypting data to prevent end users from using versions they were not authorised to use. This program has been used by end users who know very little about computers (and care less) and has been proved to be reliable.
Several other programs for configuring camera equipment and tracking assembly line tools (which included reading bar codes) have also reached the state where they just get used; without any hassle.
In summary, using Pure Basic I have achieved the goals I set out to achieve and the end results have been effective and reliable. The PB forum has been an excellent resource with friendly and helpful advice given whenever I have asked a question; thanks to everyone who has helped and I hope to make useful contributions myself when I feel able.
The MVCOM serial comms package just works. It’s boring. No excitement. It just sits there. Working. You can’t say much better than that.
The PureColor library has added a touch of refinement to several jobs and PureZip has reduced the size of files I move around; both of these are excellent items to use.
In the last year I could have used 64 bit integer arithmetic to advantage and 8-byte floats would have helped on a few occasions. I have written my own functions that I miss from GFA and hope that we will get a better CASE command at some point in the future.
I’m in a room with ‘C’ and assembler programmers and they have given up mentioning the low price point of PB and commenting “What do you expect for such a low price?”; they envy the jaPBe editor and trawl the web for effective equivalents for their own languages ..and the results PB produces silences other comments!
From my perspective as an old registered Amiga developer and still owning almost a complete set of Amiga hardware I think Fred should let the Amiga environment gracefully fade away.
Thank you Fred, for Pure Basic; have a good Xmas and may 2006 be for you and all Pure Basic users a happy and successful year.
Cheers everyone…
Glug, glug glug, hick!
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