adding FreeBASIC to the TIOBE index

[srvaldez]

I sent an email to TIOBE asking them to add FreeBASIC to the TIOBE index https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

I think FreeBASIC should be on your programming languages list
Website https://www.freebasic.net
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeBASIC
A Turing Machine implementation viewtopic.php?t=8680

Thank you for your consideration

here's their response

Thanks for your mail about our TIOBE index. One of the preconditions to
add a programming language to our list is that Wikipedia is referring to
it as a programming language. Currently, Wikipedia states that it is a
compiler not a language. The reason why we added this requirement to
accepting new programming languages and new search terms is that people
were claiming that Rails should be added to Ruby and Boost to C++ and
even Excel to VBA, etc. In order to avoid this chaos we said that
Wikipedia should refer to it as a programming language. I hope that this
answers your question.

Regards,

Paul

FreeBASIC is a multiplatform, free/open source (GPL) BASIC compiler for Microsoft Windows, protected-mode MS-DOS (DOS extender), Linux, FreeBSD and Xbox. The Xbox version is no longer maintained.

anyone familiar with Wikipedia editing please edit the description to something like

FreeBASIC Programming Language is a multiplatform, free/open source (GPL) BASIC Language compiler for Microsoft Windows, protected-mode MS-DOS (DOS extender), Linux, FreeBSD and Xbox. The Xbox version is no longer maintained.

[marcov]

(as illustration: Freepascal is now also lumped under "Delphi/Object Pascal", since Delphi dialect is the major dialect component. Delphi called the language "Object Pascal" till about 2005

So it could be possible to add freebasic as a compiler to an existing "Basic" category, e.g. one you are compatible with (QB?)
)

[srvaldez]

So it could be possible to add freebasic as a compiler to an existing "Basic" category, e.g. one you are compatible with (QB?)
)

my understanding from the email is that it needs to be unique and I think that FreeBASIC has enough unique features to be called "FreeBASIC Programming Language"

[lizard]

You know SPL? Wikipedia calls it a language, so it must be on tiobe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespea ... g_Language

[marcov]

So it could be possible to add freebasic as a compiler to an existing "Basic" category, e.g. one you are compatible with (QB?)
)

my understanding from the email is that it needs to be unique and I think that FreeBASIC has enough unique features to be called "FreeBASIC Programming Language"

Maybe. But also risk not even breaking the top 100. Still, QB doesn't seem to chart anymore either, so maybe it is no use.

It would be different if there was a considerable VB compatibility (VB is #19, VB.NET #5).

[jj2007]

You know SPL? Wikipedia calls it a language, so it must be on tiobe

Cute, but being on Wikipedia is not sufficient: It should also generate a lot of Internet traffic, e.g. in CodeProject, SOF, Reddit etc., and in specialised fora. Our FreeBasic forum is pretty active, but if you go through the TIOBE list, you will, for example, not see VB6. And yet, the VB6 guys are incredibly active, check here. Not my cup of tea, but I go there every now and then if I have a Windows-related problem. In short: We are important, but the competition is more important ;-)

Re "FreeBASIC has enough unique features": Not necessarily a strong point. There is a lot of C++ "pollution" that has little to do with BASIC.

[marcov]

. Our FreeBasic forum is pretty active, but if you go through the TIOBE list, you will, for example, not see VB6. And yet, the VB6 guys are incredibly active, check here. Not my cup of tea, but I go there every now and then if I have a Windows-related problem. In short: We are important, but the competition is more important ;-)

Re "FreeBASIC has enough unique features": Not necessarily a strong point. There is a lot of C++ "pollution" that has little to do with BASIC.

Visual basic is at 19, and includes VB6 as searchterm (see https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/progr ... #instances search for Visual Basic )

[lizard]

"FreeBASIC has enough unique features"

The simple truth is they dont want FreeBASIC on tiobe, so for everything we say they find a answer why not. In opposit case if we want something not they find for everything an answer, why it must be there. Whole world works that way.

[dodicat]

Indeed lizard, you have a good philosophical view of humankind.
I don't want to be unkind, but freebasic has stalled for general users and has only been developed for a few elite users since Jan. 2016.
Any further developments for general users looks like it will be for the parser from basic code to gcc code, but I hope I am wrong.
So freebasic will have lost it's essence (as far as being distinctive anyway), if this is the case.

[lizard]

Indeed lizard, you have a good philosophical view of humankind.

Its experience.

[counting_pine]

I've never heard of TIOBE before, and don't know whether it's worth being on their list, but in my opinion:

1. FreeBASIC is a language, FBC is a compiler for it. (In this respect I would disagree with what has been written on Wikipedia.)

It's a language defined in a de facto sense by its implementation in FBC/its runtime libarries, but also more usefully by its extensive documentation, which sets it apart clearly from a generic BASIC implementation.

(That is, in the sense that most/all other implementations of BASIC would not comply with our docs, not necessarily that other BASICs are less well-documented.)

2. TIOBE seem to have well-defined criteria of what is/isn't a programming language (https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/progr ... #instances), and their rejection is based on one of those criteria, so they've behaved reasonably so far.

Of course, that doesn't mean that they'd accept it based on someone saying: "there, I edited the page to say it's a language", but they might accept that maybe the original author didn't properly consider the distinction between language and compiler, and that it can be corrected by an edit.

[jj2007]

Selected evidence from Google searches starting with loop variable string plus...

• hits language
  43,400,000 "C"
  35,400,000 "basic"
  15,300,000 "Java"
  14,800,000 "Javascript"
  8,900,000 "assembly"
  8,900,000 "PHP"
  8,340,000 "Python"
  7,300,000 "SQL"
  4,670,000 "C++"
  2,620,000 "C#"
  1,690,000 "Ruby"
  973,000 "Pascal"
  969,000 "Perl"
  929,000 "Visual basic"
  634,000 "VBA"
  532,000 "Fortran"
  401,000 "Delphi"
  373,000 "Lisp"
  351,000 "VB.net"
  217,000 "COBOL"
  56,300 "WordBasic"
  33,400 "PowerBasic"
  12,700 "FreeBasic"
  13 "MasmBasic"

Of course, I could argue that MasmBasic is part of Assembly ;-)

[marcov]

Note that the whole thing is a bit strange. Languages change heavily place from month to month due to changes to the algorithm, what even makes the most likely goal, tracking the popularity of a language over time, dubious.

[lizard]

FreeBASIC is a dialect of the language BASIC. Each dialect has its own compiler, but none of them is only a compiler.

What you can see at tiobe index from 1 - 100:

https://www.tiobe.com/tiobe-index/

They take for big languages like C, Pascal or COBOL all dialects as one language and rate them all together, although the different dialects are mostly not compatible and each has its own compiler. But for BASIC they take each dialect separetely, like BBC Basic (somewhere at rank 50 - 100).

That way it seems many are using C, while only few are using FreeBASIC. In reality each dialect has its own compiler, so we can't say FreeBASIC would be only a compiler, that makes no sense at all.

[jj2007]

But for BASIC they take each dialect separetely, like BBC Basic (somewhere at rank 50 - 100).

BBC gets 50,000 Google hits for loop variable string "BBC Basic". Not bad (FB gets a bit less) but loop variable string "visual basic .NET" gets 621,000, that's a factor 12. So they take each significant dialect separately. In the same logic, C, C++ and C# are considered separate dialects. Same for Pascal vs Delphi.