PureBasic Forums - English

I have been away from PB for a few years. Past user and really liked it. Perfect for quick apps. It was my go to for utilities, editors, front ends to microcontrollers and even a few games. I have never found something so accessible since days of old on BASIC (BBC BASIC for me on BBC B, Master and Archimedes then recently SDL and Visual Basic in pre .NET days before it was wrecked). It was comfortable, accessible, productive and powerful, concise and contained. A rare combination.

Moved to Python and C on macOS and away from Windows. Various reasons. Also was not overly keen on the performance and appearance of PB GUI on macOS. Then moved to ARM Mac in 2021 and never thought much more. I did miss the simple accessibility of PB. Over Christmas thought I would have a look to see how it would run on Rosetta2. Surprised to find an M1 build and even more surprised to find my purchased license provided downloads to v6.

After a day or so playing around I am impressed. Very impressed. Performance is excellent. Libraries all work with a few minor exceptions (such as OpenScreen). I think I will be returning to PB. Also had a look at Spider Basic and impressed to see it has also upgraded. My purchased license for SB expired for updates in 2018 but given the price I will be purchasing.

What I like about PB:

Simpler and more concise language that can do almost everything needed. Simplicity without compromise. Function without complexity. The classic "more with less" that I really like C and similar for. A major benefit of PB. After working with Python and C++ for a few years this is welcome. Python has many great ideas but it can be hard to master many of them and keep them on hand for use. C++ seems to have just gone crazy and is a challenge to master now. I still prefer C and C is like PB for me - core set of data types, language constructs and keeps it simple, accessible and productive. PureBasic is to Python what C is to C++ for me if that makes sense.

Libraries. What can I say? All in one place, no GitHub dependencies, no pip to install and manage and no sprawl.

Documentation. Best there is. All in one place including all the libraries and support. Perfect. I would pay good money for a bound book of the full set - I have paid quite scary amounts for books that don't come close.

Cross platform. Done in a way that seems to work. Even added PI. Ticks all my boxes. I suppose asking for iOS would be a bit far (for that there is Spider Basic). Run some tests and all seems to work as expected.

Easy to build executables that I can pass on to others without a bunch of hassle.

Keen to see how it develops. I will certainly be returning. While I may not be exclusive PB just it will see more and more use and more projects and apps moving to PB.

A few things I would like to see: Dash docset - the documentation for PB is awesome and Dash would be a great front end. Git integration within the editor.

Thanks to the team for a great app and some amazing work to deliver version 6.

Welcome back and thank for the kind words ! It's still growing and maturing, after more than 25 years (!) of development.

Agree with most except no to git and no real Python comparison.
Fossil is more succinct and a complete package for PB users.
Python is bloat and oop.

Welcome back!

Creating a docset for Dash is actually quite easy. I have created one for Purebasic, but it is a bit outdated. You can download it from the link below. This was created on OSX so not sure if it will work on WIndows.

https://filedn.com/lHJwd7m6TKKuPoeDaPqWKjJ

tucker wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 4:38 pm Simpler and more concise language that can do almost everything needed. Simplicity without compromise. Function without complexity. The classic "more with less" that I really like C and similar for.

skywalk wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 5:39 pm Python is bloat and oop.

Python is multi-paradigm and comes preinstalled on Mac and most Linux ditros.

Bought a Raspberry PI when PB was announced for Arm.

Small tip. If you have a Linux ARM Virutal machine running under macOS M1, you can use the Purebacis ARM for Rasperry.

tucker wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 4:38 pm Documentation. Best there is. All in one place including all the libraries and support. Perfect. I would pay good money for a bound book of the full set - I have paid quite scary amounts for books that don't come close.

I agree — since you mention it, the PB documentation is certainly a trusted source of information, even if it isn't quite as complete as it could be in places.

We might live in an e-book age now, but what I'd love to see is a small-format book like the Pearson series... https://kaviyanpress.com/wp-content/upl ... 4x1024.jpg

Fred wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 5:35 pm Welcome back and thank for the kind words ! It's still growing and maturing, after more than 25 years (!) of development.

It has grown and matured well. Expanded neatly without excessive bloat. A decent language and system that is easy to become productive with. I miss that with BASIC replacements and each iteration of language/library/system altered it for me until it became a task to start a new code idea even to try something out. I liked C and PASCAL from Borland (2.0 and 5.5 were pinnacles for me before they went the bloat route). Recently Processing does a good job to allow quick code ideas. Then I returned to PureBASIC and found code fun again where I could quickly try out ideas and move on to larger projects.

I like what I see and am working on some plans to give PureBASIC a much more central role in my work. Thanks again.

skywalk wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 5:39 pm Agree with most except no to git and no real Python comparison.
Fossil is more succinct and a complete package for PB users.
Python is bloat and oop.

Welcome back!

I was not aware of Fossil and on quick look it demands a more detailed look. I just got used to GIT and it is the "comfortable chair" thing. It certainly has its issues and can often be a hinderance. No such things for many of my coding years - history files and ZIP files were the order of the day! It is clear I have a lot to learn and read on how seasoned PB users get the most of things.

Python has become bloated and quite cumbersome. I started using Python way back in 90s when I was using Perl a lot. Slowly over the years it has become more tedious. Recent additions to add static typing (useful but cumbersome in Python), the assignment operator hack (aka the Walrus fuss!), numerous overlapping and clunky attempts at structures. Some recent additions have been useful - print as a function and f strings stand out for me. Also like comprehensions and generators as these can be very handy when used properly. I don't mind some of the classes though again they have added more and more and lost the elegance.

C++ has gone the same way. Initially I liked some of C++ - specifically the basic data and function type class structure with inheritance. Then it went mad. Arduino actually gets a decent balance of C++ bits I like. The rest of C++ has just become seriously bloated and tricky. I always did prefer and still prefer C. Even for basic OOP it is clean and efficient with use of structs and properly named functions.

Folk like Java and I feel odd in detesting it. Verbose and clunky and I just never liked how expansive and bloated it became.

Back in 80s I loved PASCAL and especially Borland when I first saw TP 3 on CP/M then DOS. 4.0 was a decent expansion and even as far as 5.5 with basic OOP it was good - then downhill. When they added the later libraries for TUI it started to suffer the usual bloat. I did like C and 2.0 on Borland was superb. I still think it is my favourite editor, compiler and environment. I would love a modern version - even loved the Wordstar command bindings (second only to VIM bindings for me).

In recent years I have enjoyed Processing. The original Java inspired syntax actually made me like the thing. They extracted just the right bits that are useful and productive. Recent modes for JS and Python have also been very good and again take a useful subset as inspiration. The Python mode is a little light for me as I would love to see comprehensions, generators and f strings at least. The libraries are well selected and accessible.

When I came back to PureBasic I was intrigued that it seemed to have a similar feel to processing in terms of distilling complexity while maintaining a very useful and expressive core language combined with excellent libraries.

Oso wrote: Thu Jan 05, 2023 5:14 pm

tucker wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 4:38 pm Documentation. Best there is. All in one place including all the libraries and support. Perfect. I would pay good money for a bound book of the full set - I have paid quite scary amounts for books that don't come close.

I agree — since you mention it, the PB documentation is certainly a trusted source of information, even if it isn't quite as complete as it could be in places.

We might live in an e-book age now, but what I'd love to see is a small-format book like the Pearson series... https://kaviyanpress.com/wp-content/upl ... 4x1024.jpg

A small format book or series of books would be excellent. Sadly, as you say, the days of a decent manual set as I still have for Turbo C 2 and Turbo Pascal 5.5 are long one.

mk-soft wrote: Wed Jan 04, 2023 10:46 pm Bought a Raspberry PI when PB was announced for Arm.

Small tip. If you have a Linux ARM Virutal machine running under macOS M1, you can use the Purebacis ARM for Rasperry.

That is a very useful tip. I assume Debian ARM with XFCE on UTM would be a decent platform? I tend to like Debian.

I have a few PIs including one with VNC and dummy HDMI so I can use remotely and look forward to trying PB.