Marketing PB, 10 years

[USCode]

Fred, you should consider putting some kind of graphic on your website advertising that you've been around for 10+ years and aren't some fly-by-night language that might disappear tomorrow.
Most developers, before they are willing to invest a lot of time and energy into a development environment, want to be assured it will be around for the future and continue to be developed.
PB has demonstrated its staying power, you should brag about it!

I'll bet some of the more graphically talented folks here could come up with some pretty cool graphics for that.

Just a thought.

[sphinx]

I second that, although I think an addon or tool like this will make PureBasic sells like crazy!

A lot of people still use VB6 and I am sure this will make their transition much easier and I won't go far if I said many VB.NET will consider PureBasic too.

[Kukulkan]

Oh no, not again...

http://www.purebasic.fr/english/viewtop ... 24&start=0

Btw, such a tool would be great...

Kukulkan

[DarkLord]

It's all well and good to put information on the website to advertise PB's 10 year achievements, but how would they know about the site in the first place I believe business should be advertised via word of mouth not marketing *bling*, if you have a really good product it will sell itself anyway.

Perhaps an updated / modern looking website is on the cards, new logo anyone? they should just carry on doing what it is 'they' do as it seems to be working for 99.99% of the users of PB.

[Kukulkan]

if you have a really good product it will sell itself anyway.

Here I must disagree. The best product will not sell, if nobody knows about it. It is absolutely important to do some advertisement. A "good reputation" helps selling, but at first you need a good basis for that.

I think ist is absolutely necessary to make the PureBasic Homepage a bit more "modern" and after that, trying to make it more popular by "spreading the word" professionally. I have stated this about five years ago (http://www.purebasic.fr/english/viewtop ... 56#p251456) and, if you follow the thread, you can see that the arguments have been told and I even made a example of what I think about, too. But the homepage has not changed noteworthy... Maybe Fred has no interest of more success with PureBasic?

Kukulkan

[utopiomania]

I remember when I first stumbled upon the language and the site on the net. I thought
the site was boring, but downloaded the demo.

At first I thought the language was confusing, it was a WTF experience, so I deleted the
demo and forgot about PB for a while, untill I stumbled upon it again and gave it a second try, and registered.

The product itself is very good, the site is boring... It works, but it needs som uplifting vibes.

There's nothing wrong with a cool site and good marketing to back up a cool product, so I agree.

[blueznl]

Weeeellllll, if we all think the language deserves more attention, then set up a campaign.

Here are a few suggestions:

- build a PureBasic styled interpreter with some Logolike graphics, and start competing with Scratch (which seems to take over all schools by storm)

- write a game where small robots (programmed by a very PureBasic-alike language) compete with eachother

- send me a million euros

- combine all three above

Just a few mere suggestions....

[c4s]

I remember when I first stumbled upon the language and the site on the net. I thought
the site was boring, but downloaded the demo.

At first I thought the language was confusing, it was a WTF experience, so I deleted the
demo and forgot about PB for a while, untill I stumbled upon it again and gave it a second try, and registered.

Exactly the same happend to me.
I think years ago I read an interview with freak on qbasic.de. Until then I just did some DOS stuff and was interested in those fancy "windows" so I loaded the demo and tried a few examples. What I discovered were texture errors in the moving robot example, probably syntax messages etc. so I quickly forgot about it again for a while.

I think the introduction should be made easier: Working example of course, maybe "tip of the day" and maybe just a few word about the language itself... well there is much potential.

[WilliamL]

I certainly had no idea that PureBasic worked on a Mac! I don't even see that it is offered as a choice for Mac users when searching (type 'basic for Mac') for a BASIC language. How to change that?

[KJ67]

PureBasic is a nice language & has a technical skilled and dedicated crew developing it. But if the team has intentions to spread the language and get a larger user base it is strange that any search on cnet, download.com, filehippo etc., etc. gives only rather old or no result at all. On the other side, if the target is getting a dedicated and engaged user base the current strategy where word of mouth is noticeable way for new users is maybe the correct one.

I do not decide how to play this game, but personally I would really like to see PureBasic more exposed and available to users who search for a suitable language (which they are rather likely to do at the major search and index sites).

So, 10 years in and going strong. That's impressive!

[Tenaja]

So, 10 years in and going strong. That's impressive!

There are MANY open source projects that are 10 years old, and going strong.

Despite most businesses failing within 5 years, I still find 10 years not so impressive--it's part time, after all! In this day and age, someone can set up a web site once, and do very little while it slowly trickles in a part-time income. I get this unsettled feeling that is what has happened here.

What would impress me is if Fred didn't have to work another job, so development was a high priority. Personally, I'd rather pay a nominal annual maintenance fee and get bug fixes much faster than 6 months! (And maybe even some of his time devoted to making the IDE more powerful.)

I'll be honest, when I was selecting a compiler, I actually rated the web site. Sure, it's not 100% accurate, but the polish of a company web site can be indicative of the polish of the product. PB has a very polished web site...for 2001. RealBasic has a much nicer web site, but obviously, I ultimately chose PB for other reasons. Cost had nothing to do with it.

...but, had I known Fred only worked on this compiler part time, I would have gone elsewhere. I still might--not that it's not a good tool. For me, time is far more important than saving a few dollars, and waiting six months between bug fixes, and little or no IDE updates with a so-so interface could push me over the edge to moving on. I can't imagine what will happen to the compiler development when Fred gets married and has kids...with 99% of guys who have a family and a full time job, the development would come to a screeching halt! (I had that very thing happen to me with a part time "consultant" programmer--it was VERY costly.)

Oops. I guess it's time to kick the soapbox back into the garage. At least for now, I'm using PB, and satisfied.

[Tenaja]

In this day and age, someone can set up a web site once, and do very little while it slowly trickles in a part-time income. I get this unsettled feeling that is what has happened here..

Just to back this up, I joined on Nov 9th. Since that time, Fred has posted 7 posts, with the longest being 2 lines long, and 16 posts since Oct. 1. Maybe Fred already has a family... at least Freak is here, but he's got fewer posts than I over that time, and I'm not exactly a post whore. (Just a self professed whiner on occasion... )

[Zach]

I don't know. Tenaja has valid points but I personally feel a little differently, I guess.

I'm just starting out with the language, but I suppose if I were at the point where I was pushing the language to its limits, and having to deal with nasty bugs that cropped up, I would probably be annoyed by having to wait months for a patch, too.

However it certainly seems like a capable toolset that we have here, and I (hope) don't think there are any fundamental flaws that need to be addressed. So as long as things get updated at a reliable / predictable interval, then I wouldn't consider that -too- bad.


All the users can do is spread PB by word of mouth. Make a really cool program that does something faster, easier, and in less code than it might typically take in another language you work with. Then show it to your colleagues and ask them how long it would take them to come up with that in C++ or whatever their holy grail language is. Show it running not only on a PC, but a Mac and/or a Linux box too.

If you can smash their expectations or surprise them in any way. You might just have done a good job planting the idea in their head.


I know I originally picked up Python because I wanted to write a text game, and was thinking about platform independence. I'd probably still be using it, but I don't like distributing stuff that a user can't just "click and run" (aka, an EXE). The whole idea of cross-platform with PB has me excited about it again. The whole concept of compiler tags was new to me when I read about them, but that can cut down on less necesarry branching code that gets included for all systems, so I view it as a bonus for sure. I kind of like the fact that if I can skirt around some GUI issues by finding ways to do it with PB's own internal GUI tools, that I may not even have to worry about learning a bunch of API's just to release something that works across different systems.



I think the PB site looks OK. It's slick, functional and has a clean layout. Maybe Fred could stand to do a little more advertising - but that still doesn't rule out the use for good old Word of Mouth among professional coders (or beginners alike).

[Seymour Clufley]

Regarding Fred and Freak's interaction on the forum, it seems they're busy working on v4.6. I for one am very excited about that! Somebody said recently that, because PB is getting more advanced, the need for workarounds is diminishing. I'd add that perhaps we simply don't need so much help from Fred and Freak anymore. We can cobble solutions together ourselves, using the tools they've given us in PB. I visit this forum every day, and I honestly hadn't noticed the scarcity of Fred/Freak posts until Tenaja mentioned it.

PureBasic's very simple website could indicate that Fred and Freak are more interested in the product than the website. (I'm sure they are.) Also, I don't like the idea that people are so shallow they need everything to look new for them to be interested. What's wrong with a website that looks like it's from 2001? It works, it informs, it doesn't patronise. And of course I'd rather the team were working on PB than on making a flashy, gratuitous website with a Twitter box.

On the other hand... a simple website may seem to reflect a lack of developer commitment. Does the product have much life if its website is so sparse? Also, a website that doesn't have frequent updates can seem like a "f*** you" to customers, both new and existing. On PB's site, you have to really search to find the blog, and when you find it, it's rarely updated.

The site never announces that a new version is out, with new features (like the Map library), so a potential customer might look at the site, then come back a year later and see the exact same website, and assume the language isn't very lively. I know the News page is updated with each new version, but it's just not interesting enough. And info about the latest version should be on the front page.

I also think more communication with the userbase would be useful. Set aside 10 minutes each week to write a note on current development, or ideas for new commands/libraries... people would give feedback on them!

Between one version of PB and the next, we have no idea what Fred's planning. Now that's exciting because it means each new version is like a Christmas present, to be unwrapped and explored. And I LOVE that! But sadly, we're not children. We're grown-ups and we need to know what's coming 6 months down the line, because then we can judge whether to stick around or try other languages that DO have what we're going to need/want in 6 months.

It would also be good to know about the long term. We have no idea what PB will be like in 5 years. Software development is (slowly) moving from the desktop to the browser - I don't like to parrot Google but this phenomenon is undeniable. Right now PB works on Windows, Mac and Linux, which is great... but what about the new platforms: mobile phones and the browser? It seems to me that compiling to LLVM is a step which will be unavoidable in the next few years, because it would enable us to make programs for these new platforms. PB could benefit from things like iPhone and Native Client, but Fred/Freak seem to be happy to ignore them. The next generation of programmers will, I think, instantly dismiss a language that doesn't create mobile apps.

I do think that PR - much as I hate the phrase - would help PureBasic. More customers equals more money equals more development. It almost feels like Fred wants PB to remain "a bedroom project" forever. That needn't happen - and shouldn't happen. It's a fantastic language and deserves much more recognition. For that to happen, PB needs more advertising and, though I hate to say it, a flashy website.

And yes, more frequent bug fixes would be welcome.

[IdeasVacuum]

....Just the small things such as a (weekly?) news item on the website front page and ensuring that the Wikipedia entry is up to date will make a huge difference.

It would be great if one of the PB Mac Users could write a brief article about programming with PB on the Mac, I'm sure the independent magazines such as MacWorld http://www.macworld.co.uk/index.cfm and MacLife http://www.maclife.com/ would warmly receive it.