PureBasic Forums - English

a man have made a really fine program with X programming language many years ago he spent countless hours using X language to develop his program, but now he feels deeply depressed because that X PL does not provide 64bit version, and seems it will not do. i suggested to him to use purebasic 64bit and also free pascal, he don't like c/c++. i begins to wonder if the human brain can be hard wired to some programming language so he simply can't use other language, he simply stuck with that language. he said that without 64bit i feel like i don't have hair on my head, and my efforts in learning that X PL to its deepest corners evaporated to dust.
i wish i can help.

I liken it to kicking an addiction so i totally agree about brain hard-wiring to a language, those first few months are REALLY HARD!!! You get so used to how you expect things to be that any change - even for the better - can be soooo frustrating!

But just like addictions, you know that if you give it up and work hard to "get yourself better" over those next few difficult months then it'll all be worth it.

That was my experience ... the first 2-3 months of learning Purebasic, even though most of my past is rooted in VB6 basic, was soooo frustrating - not because of anything Fred/Purebasic did or didn't do, but simply because things were different, nothing more nothing less! so, naturally everything you do - even the simplest of things - is really slow and inevitably frustrating, when all you really want to do can be summed up by the R in RAD.

But i knew if i stuck with it it would be worth it ... and here I am, those three-and-now-some months later, and i'm now programming not only 32-bit Windows, but also 64-bit Windows, and 32-bit + 64-bit Linux as well as Apple OSX, and having a great time learning about them both! Thanks to Fred's amazing work giving us Purebasic on three OS (ok 4 you Amigaheads!) I've never felt more empowered or happier as a programmer, and also it gives me a feeling of security that, should anything happen tomorrow (all of a sudden Windows drops 32-bit support or all of a sudden people ditch Linux or OSX or anything - hey stranger things have happened!) then it won't have a massive impact on me, because those leaving one desktop OS for another will just be moving to another desktop OS i can now also program for

But, I guess some people just don't have or aren't willing to put in the several months that's inevitably required to get yourself up-to-speed with most of the basics/fundamentals of a new language? that's their loss though, and they'll be the ones hurt the most when the time comes that they're inevitably FORCED to change to a new language offering what they require and their customers demand, rather than it being THEIR choice!

For me?
Going back to postfix notation - var$ or var.i

It's not hardwiring, i think. For me the biggest issues are the same as for everyone else
who tries the language:

1. Lack of/Bad examples in docs.
This is pretty common in programmer written documentation. It's GREAT... if you
already know how it works or what it does. But if you're new....
And many of the compile and run examples still throw errors for one reason or another.
When I first bought PureBasic, I was amazed at how many of the included examples
crashed... and how few actually ran as-is.

2. Lack of sample code in docs with ACTUAL results shown. We're reading the docs
***because we're looking for something specific***
we want to see if the function/snippet/whatever does what we expect it to. Yet
there is seldom any output shown, so we have to cut, paste, and run just to see
if it's what we're looking for, or if it does what we expect.

3. Organization. Eh, no worse than 1 or 2. No better, but definitely no worse.
Missing Topics: Expressions , MACRO language details (what can we do?)

4. Missing whitespace stripper, string manipulation (implode, explode, etc.) and some
other stuff that you can find 100 posts of people asking how to supply the missing
functions. These same missing functions trip up 100% of newcomers again and again,
and will keep doing it. Maybe it only keeps out the unworthy?

5. Weak search function in the ide. Again, 100 posts. Stick a browser style search bar in there
and a big button "Search", and we are all happy again.

But having said all that... I love the language. I really do. I'm sticking with it.

The problem is that I have to switch back and forth between languages - there is no way that PureBasic
can replace Python/PHP/R/Pascal/C++/java/Shell Scripts(awk/sed/tcl/expect) for me.
I glue a lot of code together, and most of it isn't even mine.

So my biggest problem maybe isn't just my tiny brain, it's also my real world requirements.
I still think it's worth the effort!