No more broken code!

utopiomania · Post by **utopiomania** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:33 pm

My wish for future versions is that you do what you can to avoid breaking the syntax the way you do!

Since we are nearly at version 4.00, not 1.00, I hope that you take a good look at the language and
do your best to finish breaking the code now, and mantain backwards compatibility from here on.

I've asked one competitor to you, and they claim they do everything possible to avoid this situation
and figure they maintain a backwards compatibility of at least 99.99%, which makes sense to me.

People need to move on and benefit from improvements with new versions, not spend a hell of a lot of
time fixing and testing general procedures, templates, forum contributions and broken programs
instead.

I hope we can avoid this in the future. If not it's a valid question if PureBasic is a suitable choice
for any type of serious programming at all.

Post by **Fred** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:56 pm

Are the competitor updates free ? BTW, we do what we can to avoid this, but if something needs to be changed, it will be changed. We don't want to stay with workarounds or incomplete features, if this can be fixed. Now, you can still uses the older versions, they are mature and quite reliable.

Num3 · Post by **Num3** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 7:59 pm

Fred wrote:Are the competitor updates free ?

dracflamloc · Post by **dracflamloc** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:06 pm

Languages constantly change to allow for better design that wasnt thought of before, and to allow greater features. The changes are not that vast. Most code from 3.94 works pretty well in PB4 with just a couple parameter changes.

Your comment is foolish. Take Visual Basic for example: Up until 6.0 it was prety much the same, then MS realized that it wasnt going to compete well if they continued with the vb6 design and stuffed it into .NET (which sucks), but it sells very well and is used in many areas now.

If you read the actual changes to syntax that fred gives with pb4, there really aren't very many. Sure you may need to put a Global or two in front of some arrays or lists, or maybe change your file reading code a bit, but if your code was designed well then the file reading would be in a utility procedure and would need minimal updating just once and thats it.

Just my opinion, but an informed and experienced one that you should consider. Its not like 3.94 just flew out the window and can't be used anymore. All throughout business features and operation of functions and such change constantly. Hell just look at the Win32 API.

Killswitch · Post by **Killswitch** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:08 pm

What's the point in backwards compatability? Are the changes really that extrem that it will take you hours and hours of work to convert your source to 4.0? The next vsion is a huge step up, but the general syntax isn't all that different from 3.94 - and if something has radically changed then it's for a damn good reason.

GO FRED!

nco2k · Post by **nco2k** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 8:35 pm

and dont forget, many commands have been dropped like Use*() etc. which will allow a faster coding and a better overview / handling of your code, in the future. the useless, unnecessary and wrong named commands have been logicaly renamed or completely removed. so everything has become more unique now. if you liked the (a little bit) chaotic way of the past pb versions, maybe you should switch to vb.

c ya,
nco2k

Joakim Christiansen · Post by **Joakim Christiansen** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:02 pm

I like syntax changes

Trond · Post by **Trond** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:04 pm

nco2k wrote:and dont forget, many commands have been dropped like Use*() etc. which will allow a faster coding and a better overview / handling of your code, in the future. the useless, unnecessary and wrong named commands have been logicaly renamed or completely removed. so everything has become more unique now. if you liked the (a little bit) chaotic way of the past pb versions, maybe you should switch to vb.

c ya,
nco2k

I like Use*(), it produces shorter and more flexible codes. But: I shouldn't complain! If I like Use*(), then I can use version 3.94!

Flype · Post by **Flype** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:04 pm

i like it to. when it's needed it's needed !

Nik · Post by **Nik** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 9:09 pm

Use() is crappy for everything mor complicated, it's not useable with Threads and timers and so on

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:10 pm

Utopimaniac (sorry

) go look at your so called competitors.. Take m$ and their visual basic. They didnt break anything??

Its not like this will require TONS of work. Its not that bad. Of course it should be avoided as much as possible, but i vote yes to syntax changes if it means that your code is faster to write and more efficient to be read.

utopiomania · Post by **utopiomania** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:41 pm

Fred wrote:

BTW, we do what we can to avoid this

Thanks, please do your best.

As for the rest of the comments, the competitor I mentioned has a huge list of corporate customers
as well as single developers, and maintain backwards compatibility for obvious reasons.

To tell these customers to port and retest huge amounts of code to be able to benefit from improvements
in newer compiler versions would be commercial suicide.

And it's the same with VB6. Up until VB.NET old code could be imported perfectly and silently. They
don't let people down, because people invest time and money in what they do using their tools.

At some points in time, fundamental changes in technology forces a break with the past, but no one
else breaks syntax and peoples code with each major(?) version of a language, and I hope I'll see
less of that here in the future, hence this request. :roll:

@thefool, I have maybe a hundred broken templates, general procedures and a a few programs to
translate and test. I hate it.

The next time, if they decide to break things up again, the amount of code
and work could be much larger.

thefool · Post by **thefool** » Tue Mar 14, 2006 10:52 pm

utopiomania wrote: @thefool, I have maybe a hundred broken templates, general procedures and a a few programs to
translate and test. I hate it. The next time, if they decide to break things up again, the amount of code
and work could be much larger.

I see.. Well it will take some hours to get them all changed proberly.
However if the benefit is larger than the ammount of work, its not too bad. But do notice i completely agree with you that the needed breaks for every release should be hold as low as possible.

blueznl · Post by **blueznl** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 12:12 am

all breaks appear to improve the language, so i see fred can break as much as he likes if he continues this way

theNerd · Post by **theNerd** » Wed Mar 15, 2006 12:16 am

It's because of the changes in PB 4.0 that I have decided to make it one of my primary development languages.