PureBasic Forums - English

DOES GETTING OLD MEAN GOING STALE?
I admit to being around for awhile, and I've seen many changes. That's
not to brag about, but there is a departure from the way things were
and the way things are.

WHERE DID I CROSS THE LINE?
I've crossed people on these forums without intending to. I seems that
if you can't say it in five words or less, you are verbose. Even something
simple like "In my humble opinion" as to be abbreviated down.

SHOULDN'T BOTHER ANYONE FROM HERE
So, to try to avoid antagonizing more people, I will stay away from the
other sections. You read my posts here, it's your fault. And you can't say
you were not warned.

THE TIME FOR FIAT CURRENCIES IS ALMOST OVER
I mentioned on one other thread that nations are faced with failing
economies, the coming collapse of all fiat currencies, and that it all will end
at some point. This is well known in some circles. What keeps it all going
right now is a lack of an alternative. Someone comes up with an alternative,
say a gold-backed currency, it's all over. Enough said on that.

PUREBASIC IS STACKING UP
So far PureBasic is looking pretty good. But the current implementation of
Console features makes it crude in that department. I'm finding traces of
efforts to upgrade it in that are that took place in the past. There are
PB programs that did a fair job of upgrading what is possible, but they are
not really incorporated into the language in an easy-to-find, easy-to-use way.

FINDING THE RIGHT BOOK IN STACKS OF BOOKS
What you can do with PureBasic is well documented in some respects, but very
lacking in other ways. There are gaps where I have spelled out what I found
missing, and someone has immediately come forward with a post that holds
the answer. So the details are out there somewhere, but have somehow not
made it into the documentation. You can't leave it to the most knowledgeable
people to decide what needs to be incorporated into a Help file system, you have
to learn from people that don't know their way around a product as to what the
install, use, settings, and possibilities involve, and how they have to be written
up for others to learn as well.

LOOKING TO THE USER'S NEEDS
My specialty through most of my career was the user interface. That is, I dealt
with users, and from them I found out what they were hindered by, and I did my
best to get that information for them. you can't just assume that others are as
far along as you are, because most often they aren't. They may be ahead of you
in some respects, but likely lagging in others.

WHY ONE TOPIC WHEN SEVERAL WILL DO?
I really don't mind being Off Topic. It's too taxing to try and stay within the
framework others lay out when it comes to the rest of the forum. I could just
leave, of course. But I've been up and down this road many tmes over the
years, and it always comes out at some point that there are others out there
that appreciate a fresh viewpoint on a subject. I don't say "(You may not agree
with me, but it will make you think)" without some justification.

STILL STUCK ON CONSOLES HERE
I found some Console prorgrams, one in particular: confunc.pb. Gives me something
to deal with for awhile. Looking at its contents, and noting other program that keep
the "con" and add something to it in the name, I may be on better ground in this
regard. It's a matter of pulling it together, plus maybe adding something new as well.

AM I HELPING OR NOT?
The salvo at me was fired because I was proposing some add-ons for the Help area.
But using a number of words to describe an issue or a concept, I was argued out for
using "prose". Hey, you don't think in pure thought, you think in terms of understood
concepts and blanketing words. Wrap it up well enough in words, you have a new
concept. It's the way the mind works.

JUST GO AWAY, MAYBE?
It was suggested that I should discuss these matters elsewhere then just take the key
elements and post them. I have no thought companion on my end, and I am not going
to talk to myself in the mirror. I mean I have on occasion, but for most things to
really jell in my mind, I have to see them written out. Now I am suppose to write on
the mirror? I don't think so. Blogs are out, because you really don't get to bounce
ideas off other people there, and I've had excellent responses to some of my questions
related to PureBasic on these forums.

MORE HELP IN THE IDE?
Speaking of PureBasic Help, I see several lacks in the IDE. I mentioned that you find
nothing about external functions that PureBasic recognizes showing up there. That's a
text file under \purebasic\compilers. I copied it over to \purebasic\help, and now it
shows up under External Help. Someone wrote that was a bad place for it, I guess
because it is considered part of the internal structure of PureBasic, but hey! These are
external procedures (functions), right? And besides, at least now they show up.

WHAT NEEDS TO BE KNOWN ABOUT ANY DLL
Knowing what external functions have been included is only a part of the battle though.
What is the function good for? How many parameters are needed to call it? What is the
type of those parameters? What does it return? You have to know these things to be
able to make use of any procedure, even external functions. Maybe that should be
covered in the Help section. Or do we all have to root it out from other sources?

SO i MISSED A CALL
I don't read so well. My eyes you see. I usually have to enlarge the view so that the text
is larger to be able to make it out. I could not relate to the idea of setting preferences in
the IDE because I did not see or recognize the tern Preferences on the drop down menu
items. So I did the next thing possible: I used Google to search the internet for the words
PureBasic and Preferences. I got directed to the right section of the PureBasic documentation
to read that it is found under Files. I looked closely, and there it was. Shows again that the
search engines can be your best friend at times.

HOW MANY PUREBASIC WEBSITES ARE THERE?
But speaking of the IDE and finding stuff, what I see missing is any links to the multiple
PureBasic websites. You need http://www.purebasic.com in order to get updates or to order what
you don't have. The same site gives you links to other sites. You might want to visit some
of the others as well. Let's see... Some are in German or French, but a few are in English
or have English translation. The PureBasic Forums would be a good one to have a link to
in the IDE, otherwise how are newcomers to find their way here? I mean, if you have worked
with other languages, you know that there is nearly always at least one forum out there
where you can ask questions and get help, or help others, so it makes sense to search for
PureBasic Forum. But if you are a real newcomer, you won't know to do that.

FORUMS CAN SIGNAL WHO IS WINNING, WHO IS LOSING
I had mentioned that all the HotBasic forums have expired, except the two groups that the
developer set up under Yahoo. By expired, I mean they collapsed because of the lack of
interest. Forums are important for the nurturing of newcomers, but newcomers are needed
for the growth of the forums. It's a two-way street.

WHEN THERE ARE TOO MANY, TRY TO BRING FOCUS DOWN TO THE FEW
To deal with the lack of real documentation about the external functions that PureBasic
recognizes, I am going to strip out all the DECLARE FUNCTION statements that I have in a
Win32API.inc file from another source and try to pair them up with the list of procedures
(what PureBasic refers to them as), and make a special mark for any that don't pair up.
The result will be a guide going forward of what I might have to incorporate myself.

HOW TO GET MORE HELP FOR YOURSELF
I just started looking through some of the External Help files, these being .TXT, .HTM/.HTML,
.CHM and possibly some other file types that have been put in the \purebasic\help folder.
You can add more if you want to. In fact, I started a file named MyOwn,txt, that I can use
to remind me of how to do some things in PureBasic that I did another way in a different
BASIC. I've only two entries in it so far, but I am sure more will come.

FOR LIBRARIES, HERE IS A GOOD ONE
Anyway, I was struck by the PureBasic Library Descriptor.htm file reference, so looked inside.
Now that is notable. Worth coming back to and working with later on. Believe me, I have so
much on my back burners that I will never catch up.

AND PUREBASIC OUTGROWS MOST ROADMAPS
There is so much to PureBasic that I wonder if they will ever get the documentation organized
well enough for anybody to really get through it all. There is a lot more here than you would
ever guess at the start. But so much hinges on knowing the exact keyword to use when trying
to search it out from all the documentation that is there.

WHERE DO NEWCOMERS FIT IN?
The question then is, how do you get past this to focus on a newcomer's needs? Puts me in
mind of a scene I have viewed in some libraries frequented by families. You have the regular
rows of shelves with books on them, and end markings to steer you towards the right row, shelf,
and finally book location, which most of us use. But you have a separate area set off in a circle
with low tables and children's picture books scattered on them so that they can find what they
want easily. For beginners of PureBasic, we think in terms of lessons, tutorials, and example
programs. How far do you have to carry that concept before you expect that they should manage
with what else is provided? It's a judgement call, I guess.

I got the goose to go do another web search from PCH, and I turned up
a dilly. I searched for PureBasic API, and this link came up:
http://purebasic-api.wikispaces.com/
I definately made a bookmark of this one.

PUREBASIC AND THE APIs
I'm thinking about the files I am putting together now. You know, related
to sorting out the functions/procedures involving the APIs and what
PureBasic is set up to recognize without having to declare anything.
Seems like anything like that should be shared, and of course we have the
new or improved example programs that people come up with. Without
setting up and managing my own web site, seems there's no good way to
share such things here. I've done a couple of unfancy web sites, but anything
of that nature takes up time, my time is split many ways already. Just a
thought. Likely nothing will come of it.

PUREBASIC AND DLLs IN GENERAL
Uh! Finish one search, and here comes a request for another. Okay.
This time I did the search for PureBasic DLL, and got directed to this
part of the PureBasic documentation:
http://www.purebasic.com/documentation/ ... e/dll.html
The information is likely there, it's just a matter of finding it.

oldefoxx wrote:Knowing what external functions have been included is only a part of the battle though.
What is the function good for? How many parameters are needed to call it? What is the
type of those parameters? What does it return? You have to know these things to be
able to make use of any procedure, even external functions. Maybe that should be
covered in the Help section. Or do we all have to root it out from other sources?

Yes, you get help for the external API functions from external sources.

WinAPI is documented by Microsoft. Linux APIs is documented in Linux man pages and DevHelp, etc.
MacOSX API is documented by Apple.
Those API documentations can be several hundred megabytes large, and PB cannot simply
include it. Also for copyright reasons.

For getting the WinAPI documentation you want now, you install the freely available Windows SDK from Microsoft.
For a start you could browse the famous Win32.hlp too, but it is very old and does not have newest informations.

You don't need to search what all functions in ApiFunctionsListing.txt do. You read/search the proper API documentation
to find the function you need. Then you just use the API function in PureBasic by adding an underscore after the
function name. And then, if you see the function is not recognized by PureBasic, you add an Import declaration
to your code, or write a wrapper function with OpenLibrary(). Win95 core API functions are already included with PureBasic,
should be enough for getting you started (if you install the API documentation from Microsoft).

Learning PureBasic takes some time. Learning how to use several thousands of WinAPI functions takes even more time,
if you never programmed WinAPI before. Looks like you want it all at a time, instantly.

- WinAPI and DLL's
- Additional help files for WinAPI and Assembly

SEARCH OUT INFO ON DLLs ELSEWHERE
Hey, good reply. I never encountered anything that mentioned Linux
or MacOS APIs before. You can figure there ought to be some, but I bet
they don't go by the handle "APIs". That's a Microsoft term, so would
tend to believe they are named something else.

I'LL GO WITH TOPIC HEADERS
I went back over this thread earlier today, and what I have written is
pretty much what I had in mind, but it is clumpy. I'm going to try to fix
that a bit by inserting some subheaders, so that you then know what the
next paragraph or two is intended to cover. Let's see if that helps or not.

A LOT OF EXTERNAL PROCEDURES COVERED THERE
I just used Excel to count up the number of external procedures that the
APIFunctionList.txt file covers. That's 7,246. And that is a lot. The list goes
well beyond what I would have expected. For instance, it covers SQL abd XML,
WOW, and some things only named SystemFunction001 to SystemFunction033,
plus a whole lot more.

Some look like functions, in that they show paramters being passed to them and
you would expect a response. A large number only have the name. What is it
that you would ask the system to do for you, that you need not provide parameters
for? Questions within questions, it seems.

WHAT TO PAIR THEM WITH?
Alright, even though PureBasic may be ready to handle a large number of API functions,
that does not mean that you necessarily have those functions at your beck and call.
As mentioned elsewhere, there are three SDKs out there for Windows, and they don't
all cover the same things. It depends on what that version of Windows is intended to
do, or cover. It may also depend on what applications have been added. Let's face it,
if it comes to writing appications or utilities that run on other versions of Windows,
you have to seek the common ground. You are pretty much limited to what you can
do with your version of Windows anyway. How could you possibly write for something
that you don't have and test it out? I guess have another machine handy somewhere.

AND WHAT ABOUT MacOS AND LINUX?
This list is suppose to just be the API Functions, which is Windows specific. Are there
any embedded calls to procedures related to the MacOS or Linux in the alternate
version of PureBasic? I don't know. I have it, haven't had time to mess with it, and
a quick glance around in the folders related to it don't tell me much. Just another
unanswered question for now, I guess.

Boy, if I lived to twice my age, I don't think I could learn or uncover it all. PureBasic
gives me something to deal with for a long time coming, assuming that the world's
state of affairs does not sink that much more.

oldefoxx wrote:I never encountered anything that mentioned Linux or MacOS APIs before.
You can figure there ought to be some, but I bet they don't go by the handle "APIs".
That's a Microsoft term, so would tend to believe they are named something else.

- Application Programming Interface

- Browse Unix/Linux API
- The Linux Kernel API (PDF)

- Mac Developer Library (search Apple's developer site for "API")
- MacOS X Cocoa ("The Cocoa frameworks consist of libraries, APIs, and runtimes...")
- Mac OS X APIs

DOT THE Is, CROSS THE Ts
And there we have it. Someone knows something about the development
process with Linux and the Mac. Someone like me had to bring the matter
forward for attention, and there is someone on hand to answer the question.

See, it has nothing to do with what I am involved with myself at the moment,
it's a matter of something at the back of the closet that might be worth taking
a look at. You might read through this and think nothing more of it, while it
might be of real interest to someone else. Or maybe at some future point in
time, someone will conduct a search which comes here as a possible answer
to their query. I find that significant, if not important.

That's what I try to do. Do something significant, not waste time on a blog that
nobody can find or will bother to read. It's about getting stored information out
of certain heads and down where it might help others.

oldefoxx wrote:Someone like me had to bring the matter forward for attention, and there is someone on hand to answer the question.

I just googled "linux api" and "macos api" for you, the information came out of google's head.

Everything is already there, you just have to search for it. Everybody is doing it all the time. Silently.
If you want to know something, you search for it and a few minutes later you have the required information.

- Advanced Linux Programming

Beware of information overload, fox!

YET ANOTHER SEARCH RESULT INVOLVING "PUREBASIC"
http://forum.purebasic.com/english/viewtopic.php?t=4039
This search involved PureBasic Linux API, and got a hit on purebasic.com
Not to steal another man's thunder, I am just providing a link to his post.

WHAT'S HOT AND WHAT'S NOT?
Every country or national union is printing money like mad, to try and
get their economy's moving again. It won't work. Money does not create
jobs, jobs generate money. A fiat currency is any currency that is money by
law or decree. Governments establish monetary systems, have money
printed or minted, and then gets it into circulation.

The more money there is because of the zealous printing, the faster prices
rise, because the supply of things is not effected by more loose money being
around. People see what is happening, and they demand more money to
compensate. So prices rise faster.

There are two rules you need to recognize here:
(1) Don't hold onto money, because it is going down in value every day. Use
it to generate more money by good investments or getting it into something
besides just funds. (2) If you cannot raise your money significantly, or you get
too close to the edge where the currency is about to plummet, you need to get
what you have into something that will hold value, like real estate or a
commodity like gold or silver. Some say you should be 10% to 30% into a
commodity already, because the currency drop time keeps edging closer.

There are many investments that are panning out, but I am not one to tell you
what they are. Some investors report significant gains that have more than
offset the current rate of inflation. Note the official rate of inflation is biased
to the low side, as governments strive to look like they are going a good job in
fighting it. The real measure of the economy has to take into account things like:

(1) Number of people on government assistance programs
(2) Number of actual people out of work. This includes those that have stopped looking.
(3) The expansion of government assistance programs, including new programs.
(4) The lack of jobs for those that have earned degrees or gotten certified in some field.
(5) The number of bankruptcies and escalation of debt throughout society.
(6) Number of households that have had to hunker in together or live on the street.

If you are smart enough for PureBasic, you are smart enough to keep an eye on your
future. I'm just advising you of what to look out for.

What do you want to do with Gold and Silver?

Buy some land/ground if you can. Plant trees, vegetables, fruits. Look out for water in the ground.

Danilo wrote:

oldefoxx wrote:Someone like me had to bring the matter forward for attention, and there is someone on hand to answer the question.

I just googled "linux api" and "macos api" for you, the information came out of google's head.

Everything is already there, you just have to search for it. Everybody is doing it all the time. Silently.
If you want to know something, you search for it and a few minutes later you have the required information.

- Advanced Linux Programming

Beware of information overload, fox!

YOU'VE MADE A VALID POINT
Another search fan. I like that, As to information overload, I think they
reported that we had doubled the previous amount of knowledge that
mankind had by the early 1950s. How many times has it gone over that
in some 60 years? Back in G. Washington's and B. Franklin's time, an
educated man was one that had read maybe five essential books that
covered a variety of subjects. Now you might need that many books for
a single semester class in college, and that is on one subject.

SOMETHING NEW
If you haven't heard of graphene, something made from graphite, you
might want to play catch-up. It's the next hot thing to come out of
research labs all over. It has very interesting photon and electrical
properties, and may be at the heart of the next generation of computers
as well as the heart of light defusion garments, a.k.a. "invisibility cloaks".
I kid you not: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphene

China produces 70% of the world's supply of graphite, and has scaled back
production by about 90% when it comes to exports. But there is a small
company in Canada that is sitting on a motherload, good for an estimated
30 year run, and might be worth investing in. Sorry, I don't have any
specifics about the company itself. But this might help:
http://dailyresourcehunter.com/crash-co ... -graphene/
This may be vaguely interesting:
http://www.goldismoney2.com/showthread. ... e-Mindesta
And this:
http://www.aixtron.com/index.php?id=205 ... PAodSzUA-A

In case you don't recognize the name graphene, it is the material that nanotubes are made of.
Remember nanotube, the superstrong material that was suppose to act as an elevator cable
if you extended it to the space station? Could never be done, of course, because the space
station is far too close to earth to take up a geostationary orbit at one point over the earth.
You would have to put the orbiting platform out 22,236 miles above the earth's equator, and
moving aligned to the earth's axis. Even if you had that, trying to lay a cable from here to
there or back would be about impossible. At any distance the cable was closer than that, it
would snake to the east as it strove to take up residence about the earth, seeking its own
orbit.

But beyond making nanotubes, now they are working with flat wafers of the stuff, and it has
remarkable properties under different circumstances. I don't think I would classify it as a
mature technology yet, but it has promise, and lots of major companies are getting into the
game of finding out what they can do with it.

oldefoxx wrote:YET ANOTHER SEARCH RESULT INVOLVING "PUREBASIC"
http://forum.purebasic.com/english/viewtopic.php?t=4039
This search involved PureBasic Linux API, and got a hit on purebasic.com
Not to steal another man's thunder, I am just providing a link to his post.

WHAT'S HOT AND WHAT'S NOT?
Every country or national union is printing money like mad, to try and
get their economy's moving again. It won't work. Money does not create
jobs, jobs generate money. A fiat currency is any currency that is money by
law or decree. Governments establish monetary systems, have money
printed or minted, and then gets it into circulation.

I know this is the off-topic area, but how the heck do you go from a PureBasic topic to the economy in the same post?

Besides, you're just wasting bandwidth now with your off-topic posts. In the first part quoted above, you're doing nothing but just linking to another existing post. In other words, contributing NOTHING. And in the second part quoted above, you're just babbling about the economy for the sake of it.

Mods, how long do we have to put up with this guy? He clearly doesn't belong here. And Danilo, stop humoring him. You're feeding the troll.

Here is the blog of oldefoxx and many people in this forum want to read what the old fox has to say. That's how I understood it.

I think oldefoxx has covered all corners - if you don't want to read what he has to say, you don't have to.

SHOULDN'T BOTHER ANYONE FROM HERE
So, to try to avoid antagonizing more people, I will stay away from the
other sections. You read my posts here, it's your fault. And you can't say
you were not warned.