PureBasic Forums - English

Hello,

my wish/request is:
support for ARM-Linux with FASMARM in order to support Purebasic on coming/existing ARM-Linux platforms like e.g. Raspberry Pi.

Looking for some BASIC support on the Raspberry PI one has pointed to GAMBAS, which was failing. BASIC as one of the oldest and most general programming languages should be feasible on such platforms.
Purebasic could head to fill a gap and would be embraced by many hardware enthusiasts.

Greetings
Thorsten

Read more about supporting ARM and/or mobile OS in the "Christmas interview" with Fred here:
http://www.purearea.net/pb/english/inte ... d_2012.htm

So I think, your request will not have many changes, at least not until Apple switches MacOS to an ARM platform...

Andre,

I read the interview. I don't think that Apple will change any game further. Still the decision is on the purebasic team.

If the wish remains an unheard wish, it is just like a bad christmas.

My thinking is just going forward to the capabilities of ARM processors, that might conquer the desktops soon. And for that trend linux will be a player. In my thinking Apple plays no role. Just small checkcard computers like raspberry or AMDs Gizmo. But just having a look at the Gizmo shows that AMD converts more power to heat than into computing with such a part. Therefor I see a future for desktop ARM-computers.

And therefor I see a pretty good niche for purebasic to support such small PCs with applications (directly, without a Java-RTE, that must be reloaded each month for security flaws).

Greetings
Thorsten

Was been wished and discussed multiple times allready.
Many people would love to see a ARM version of PB. There would be a userbase for ARM-Linux. However thats not the problem, the problem is the amount of work needed to first build the ARM compiler and add new libs, change existing ones. And on the other side the ongoing support.

I guess thats whats holding Fred back.
If ARM stays as strong as it is now, my guess is we will eventually get a ARM-PB some time in the future.

Thorium wrote:If ARM stays as strong as it is now, my guess is we will eventually get a ARM-PB some time in the future.

ARM-PB for Linux only, or would you include ARM-PB for Win8 and many more ARM based platforms?

Yea, I had to bump this post, mainly because I think that Fred and team could make a little cash developing a Basic for the Raspberry Pi, sell it for around 50 bucks. The raspberry Pi has sold over 1 million copies, I'm 1 million and 1,

Cool little Computer, I watch old episodes of G4s Icons series on it, the good ones about the game industry and the start of Apple and the PC.

Google its self bought, I do believe, 15000 of them for schools over seas, and they are stuffing them into schools all over, could you see the future programmers of the world using Purebasic? on Pi? I could !.

Just something to think about guys, as it has been said, languages on the Raspberry Pi are lacking, and I freakin hate Python, Raspbian , the one OS for the Pi, comes with Python and scratch languages.

But I'd much rather buy and use Purebasic on it!.

Oh and it wouldnt have to be a complete copy of our Purebasic, just a small subset would be nice!

call it Pure-Pi, with Whip Cream on top, Pure-Pi WC edition

Peace out Programmers!











's

I second the request. It is becoming increasingly difficult to code without bumping into ARM.

All the functions need not be ported, a subset would do.

Sorry to dig this old thread up, but with the success of the Raspberry Pi and Pi 2 (selling around 4 million units and having dedicated fans) I'd love to see a version of purebasic for ARM/Pi

Smartphones are increasingly becoming dominant. Purebasic is at the risk of becoming irrelevant and a niche player .

B4x.com, Corona SDK, Moai or Gideros are interesting examples of what PureBasic could shoot towards.

I would love to see a Moai like Purebasic, with better support, compilation to native code, and support for native widgets. SpiderBasic does not seem to cut it for fast native applications.

smishra wrote:Purebasic is at the risk of becoming irrelevant and a niche player .

That might sound harsh, but was there a time when PB wasn't a niche player?

I hope we all understand here that RbP is a toy, nothing more, nothing less. Fact that there are number of *enthusiasts* using it is rather irrelevant. Check RbP's errata and known issues, it is virtually unusable in any serious (and "serious") environment. Its only major advantage is relatively low price.

As for smartphones and ARM's, let's hope Intel will manage to push x86 to all platforms, which is already happening quite nicely. Fact is - ARM simply can't deal with x86, and if all goes well, their days are gone (again!).

PureBasic could use some further improvements in the form it currently is, without interfering with ARM.

was there a time when PB wasn't a niche player?

From around 2005 till about 2012/2013 you could develop native applications and code solely in PB for all applications and platforms that most clients asked for.

From about 2012/2013 the demand for smartphone apps became dominant.

This is from the perspective of a small, competent engineering firm whose software is evaluated for the functionality it provides, as compared to compliance with "industry" buzzwords. Yeah sure while Java, .NET, Python and language du jour were the rage and all the in crowd was talking about them, we continued developing applications in PB and deploying them.

For development efficiency, we now develop core functionality as ANSI C shared libraries and use wrappers in the appropriate language/ecosystem for platform specific stuff. We still use PB for the frontend where we can.

bbanelli wrote:I hope we all understand here that RbP is a toy, nothing more, nothing less. Fact that there are number of *enthusiasts* using it is rather irrelevant. Check RbP's errata and known issues, it is virtually unusable in any serious (and "serious") environment. Its only major advantage is relatively low price.

As for smartphones and ARM's, let's hope Intel will manage to push x86 to all platforms, which is already happening quite nicely. Fact is - ARM simply can't deal with x86, and if all goes well, their days are gone (again!).

Wow. These statements are wrong on so many levels. ARM is crushing Intel in all things mobile. Apple is cranking out faster and lower power ARM based systems-on-a-chip(A7,A8,etc.). Yes the x64 i7 is way more powerful, but at the expense of complexity and cost. I think PB should definitely target ARM and let LLVM + CLang do the work. With PB we get inline ASM and SpiderBasic allows inline JavaScript. It would be great to have PB also inline C.

bbanelli wrote:I hope we all understand here that RbP is a toy, nothing more, nothing less. Fact that there are number of *enthusiasts* using it is rather irrelevant.

Since when was PureBasic purely aimed at the professional / industrial market? I think The Pi has a brilliant user base, we're talking 4 million and counting. If PureBasic were to gain popularity on the platform for ease of use and power I could see quite a few people willing to purchase PB.

bbanelli wrote: Check RbP's errata and known issues, it is virtually unusable in any serious (and "serious") environment. Its only major advantage is relatively low price.

Again, we do we have to say "no" because we can't make serious and I mean serious stuff?? Virtually unusable??

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/enterprise/ ... ute-module

bbanelli wrote:As for smartphones and ARM's, let's hope Intel will manage to push x86 to all platforms, which is already happening quite nicely. Fact is - ARM simply can't deal with x86, and if all goes well, their days are gone (again!).

ARM Market Share Mobile application processors
including smartphone, tablet and laptop
2012 2013 2014
78% 85% 86%
source : ARM Q4 Presentatoion http://ir.arm.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=19721 ... sentations

skywalk wrote:

As for smartphones and ARM's, let's hope Intel will manage to push x86 to all platforms, which is already happening quite nicely. Fact is - ARM simply can't deal with x86, and if all goes well, their days are gone (again!).

Wow. These statements are wrong on so many levels.

Wow, I wish I would have something stronger than your statement as is.

Comparing in architecture, there is no doubt about computing power ration in favor of x86, benchmarks are disambiguous. On the other hand...

ARM is crushing Intel in all things mobile.

...thank you, cptn. Obvious.

OK, seriously, this also isn't in question in market share. At the moment. But Intel isn't standing still and as you can see, there are more and more tablets and wearable concepts based on x86. Quad core Atom has SDP of 2.5W, which is equivalent to mainstream ARM SOC. Price is also equivalently competitive. So I don't see any reason why a year from now, your statement could be deeply shaken.

Thus, the question is - why not polish and nurture existing product which has existing platform and a very strong potential on mobile platform?

In addition to all above, I am not sure that ARM's producers fragmentation will help in this case as well. Intel is a big company and they can probably afford playing and testing mobile field without that damaging their P&L scenarios significantly.

I think PB should definitely target ARM and let LLVM + CLang do the work. With PB we get inline ASM and SpiderBasic allows inline JavaScript. It would be great to have PB also inline C.

IMNSHO, this sounds much simpler than it would be in production with the current constellation of PB team...

em_uk wrote:Since when was PureBasic purely aimed at the professional / industrial market? I think The Pi has a brilliant user base, we're talking 4 million and counting. If PureBasic were to gain popularity on the platform for ease of use and power I could see quite a few people willing to purchase PB.

And out of 4M people using RbP, how many do you believe:

a) are in development business
b) if are in development business, would choose PB for any reason of whatsoever?

bbanelli wrote:Again, we do we have to say "no" because we can't make serious and I mean serious stuff?? Virtually unusable??

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/enterprise/ ... ute-module

You have provided link a year old, meanwhile, new enhanced RbP 2 came out, and it:

a) still has ridiculusly low DASD performances
b) still uses LAN9514 (so if you have used old RbP you are aware of the USB/LAN performance ordeal)
c) multiple software issues (which leads me to believe you have never ever in your whole entire life used RbP!)
d) is shy!

I simply cannot believe anyone sane and with more than a-day of experience in IT can consider 35$ toy to be anything serious. Since in the end of the day, it is still 35$ toy. A very nice toy, I own several of them and they are pretty cool, really.

ARM Market Share Mobile application processors
including smartphone, tablet and laptop
2012 2013 2014
78% 85% 86%
source : ARM Q4 Presentatoion http://ir.arm.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=19721 ... sentations

Another captain here.

Yes, I am aware of ARM's market share. I don't know why are you pointing it out, since I have never questioned that, read my post again.

Point is, by Intel's entering on mobile market with x86 CPU's, PB users are not entirely "expelled" from developing on mobile platforms.