Quickbasic Cafe Forum

[I Daniel]

Actually it is not for "backward compatibility". It is using what you have and then enhance it. Unfortunately i find that FB has gone away from the simplicity of BASIC and now looks more like C or Pascal. Someone once caused quite a fight here when he said FB had slowly but surely changed into a language, to use his words, for "the elite"
Why just defining everything is already no longer BASIC but C. and it involves more time to type and time is precious.
The use of plain English as was the intention of BASIC has apparently fallen by the way.

Do those QB4.5 programs that have been slightly recoded to run on -lang flite compile to 64 bit.
(for instance the use of other SCREENs that worked very well to replace SCREEN 7 and 13, when you defined colours you used and not use the BASIC " COLOR 14,11" etc. The blank screens were also eliminated when doing so.
BSV files become monstrous when converted to BMP. The excuse was so what modern computers have oodles of memory and hard-drive space, and the quad CPU's take care of the slow execution times. I don't think bigger is not better it is mere bloat. Just like some of those BASIC programs i debugged for a guy and ended up with a program less than half the size and execution in 10 seconds instead of 56 seconds.
I have seen some modern programs as convoluted, if not more, as some BASIC programs.

Just remember what I previously said. "FBC is the most viable compiler." And FBIde made it easy to use and no need for use of the command line.

[marcov]

Actually it is not for "backward compatibility". It is using what you have and then enhance it. Unfortunately i find that FB has gone away from the simplicity of BASIC and now looks more like C or Pascal. Someone once caused quite a fight here when he said FB had slowly but surely changed into a language, to use his words, for "the elite"

The problem is that "elite" definition is outdated. The old Basic was the basics of micros and commandline, but that is only simple and basic for oldskool users.

The new newbies grew up with Windows, is more comfortable with that then you are, and don't care about that, even more so if they have to run emulations to keep it.

IOW one mustn't confuse what one is comfortable with with "easy for new users".

Why just defining everything is already no longer BASIC but C. and it involves more time to type and time is precious.

I don't like the Cification of FB either, and I think a better balance could be struck. (for one, an user shouldn't have to know anything about allocation and termination of the string type for basic operation). But I think some of it is inescapable. FB is *IS* a full compiler, and In modern situations you have to communicate with the external world, which is unfortunately mostly on procedure (cq C) level.

The use of plain English as was the intention of BASIC has apparently fallen by the way.

I always took that more as an initial principle. Taking it really far is IMHO counterproductive.

Do those QB4.5 programs that have been slightly recoded to run on -lang flite compile to 64 bit.
(for instance the use of other SCREENs that worked very well to replace SCREEN 7 and 13, when you defined colours you used and not use the BASIC " COLOR 14,11" etc. The blank screens were also eliminated when doing so.

QB4.5 shouldn't matter to newbs starting in FB. Anyway for people wanting a QB emulation, there's QB64.

The QB crowd is thinning and aging, and the fact that it doesn't run without emulation will only accelerate that. Long term FB newbie support should work for newbies coming directly to FB, not QB migration paths.

[I Daniel]

@ marcov et all
The point I am trying to make is; Why use wacky terms and words when a plain English word as per BASIC would do it much better. Why not build on the BASIC principles and make things easier and not more work.
Just for the moz I googled "Qbasic in schools" and got quite a number of hits. BASIC, except the ancient old types, is not as dead as many people think. Everyone seems to confuse QB4.5, which is a well structured language, with the older BASICs. Just for a laugh this is the "Free BASIC" Forum :-)

[BasicCoder2]

@ marcov et all
The point I am trying to make is; Why use wacky terms and words when a plain English word as per BASIC would do it much better. Why not build on the BASIC principles and make things easier and not more work.

As a self taught hobby programmer I spent some years before discovering FreeBasic using C (not C++) and cannot find any advantage of FreeBasic over the more matured C++ apart from readability.

[I Daniel]

The new newbies grew up with Windows, is more comfortable with that then you are, and don't care about that, even more so if they have to run emulations to keep it.

IOW one mustn't confuse what one is comfortable with with "easy for new users".

No marcov none of this refers to me and how I see it. I desire streamlining, ease of use, structure and not a language with a higher learning curve for commercial programmers only. New languages have been popping up all these years. Mine is not a preference as you are assuming because the "coat fits nice". I love change for the better not just change for the sake of change or to imprint ones style or views on things I say eclectic is electric, it lights things up.
C is according to some as antiquated as BASIC yet it is still used! And C++ is an enhanced C etc so why not the same in BASIC?
As you say yourself it is the readability and thus the simplicity of it all.

Emulation of QB4.5 is not intended nor proposed; it does not concern running your old QB programmes but using something new. Freebasic has its roots in much of QB and for beginners to jump to fancy stuff at the end of the curriculum is not required when starting. Merely changing things in QB4.5 to run on FB is already learning something new because there is a desire to do more yet you are on familiar grounds. It is like moving along from grade 1 to grade 2 etc etc.. This is enhancing your programming skills and an easier way to learn new things. It also gives you a wider perspective.

[RockTheSchock]

Let's face it, Quickbasic was a nice language that nowadays is a bit outdated lacking some modern features. So what i want from a general purpose language is as much consistent syntactic sugar as possible. For script languages like JavaScript / Lua less is more.

Apart from the language the QuickBasic compiler / QB interpreter is just ancient. You can't handle more than 64KBytes, well with dynamic arrays 128KBytes of data. You have to use quirks like EMS / XMS/ Unreal Flat mode and an emulator like DOSBox on modern computer systems. The programms are slow and using an emulator makes them even slower.

QB as language isn't that bad. But the compiler / interpreter just sucks because it's for 16bit dos. If i were a teacher ( i wanted to be one) i would use the language, i am most comfortable with. And if there are more languages at your disposal just take the most consistent with a lot of syntactic sugar with a nice free development enviroment eg. Python, FreePascal (Lazarus/Delphi), Java, C++, FreeBasic or PHP. My favourite suggestion first.

Every programming language has it's pros and cons to learn as first one. But the main problem is: learning a programming language takes as much time as learning math or every other language. It's not enough to learn all words. You need to learn how to use them fluently. You cant demand that much time from your pupils. They do it as hobby in their free time or they wont get it, unless they are very intelligent and interested.

As a self taught hobby programmer I spent some years before discovering FreeBasic using C (not C++) and cannot find any advantage of FreeBasic over the more matured C++ apart from readability.

I am also a self taught hobby programmer. I started with QB and NASM. Then I learned Scheme, C and mainly Java at university. Later i learned VB6/VBA then PHP. Recently i looked into LUA and Python. If i start something in my free time as hobby i choose the language that fits best, even if it means i have to learn it new. But if I want to do something quick and dirty i use FreeBasic. With Basic i feel just most comfortable.

[BasicCoder2]

@RockTheSchock

Sadly I didn't make it to university so I missed out on a formal education in computer science and electronics and had to earn my living by other means. I started my hobby with machine code which involved entering instructions and data into a home made computer kit via toggle switches which had LEDs as its only display. Then TRS-80 BASIC and its Z80 instruction set, the C64 and its 6502, the Amiga and its 68000 and lastly QBasic and the 8086 where I also started using C.

Although I liked Visual Basic it was slow and didn't give me the low level access of Assembler, C and now FreeBasic. When I found I could easily interface FreeBasic programs to a webcam (thanks to Joshy) and input/output data to a K8055 (thanks to bfuller and MichaelW) I was hooked. Python is probably a better choice now simply because of the support base but much of my enthusiasm for computers and electronics has faded so I doubt I will ever learn it.

[RockTheSchock]

Sadly I didn't make it to university so I missed out on a formal education in computer science...

Well i wasnt successful and had to leave after 2 years. I did complete everything with programming involved with first try, but almost nothing else. I am sad that i didn't go to "Fachhochschule" (College) instead. It's less theoretical. Thats more than 10 years ago and now i have a good job.

[marcov]

The new newbies grew up with Windows, is more comfortable with that then you are, and don't care about that, even more so if they have to run emulations to keep it.

IOW one mustn't confuse what one is comfortable with with "easy for new users".

No marcov none of this refers to me and how I see it. I desire streamlining, ease of use, structure and not a language with a higher learning curve for commercial programmers only. New languages have been popping up all these years. Mine is not a preference as you are assuming because the "coat fits nice". I love change for the better not just change for the sake of change or to imprint ones style or views on things

The whole point is that you make "newbie" argument using sentiments that are alien to real programming newbies (without dos-qb and other old basics experience). IOW if you talk about newbies, talk about newbies. QB upgraders are not not newbies, specially if they are long time QBers.

It is very confusing if you are talking about making FB newbie ready one minute, and catering to QB and dos legacy the other.

Btw, while I consider C hard to read (too much use of punctuation characters, ambiguous = vs ==, I never really saw Basic as the pinnacle of readability, I always more saw C (curly braces in general) as terse.

[I Daniel]

I am not talking of the pros and cons of QB4.5 as such but the use of its tenents and principles as used in FreeBasic and building on them more on lines of using Basic English words rather than curly braces, foobars and foofaraw.
I am talking of the streamlining of FreeBasic as such and for newbies using QB4.5, if they are already using it, or use its principles and some good examples as per QB, as contained in the FreeBasic, Help files etc., to advance their knowledge and learning the enhancements etc of FreeBasic. I said start at the beginning not the end of the curriculum.

Perhaps Iam not being so clear on the subject but that is the intent of my words even if it is so that people from other language worlds find it more comfortable to use the convension they were taught and are used to, yet they do not apply that knowledge in a more eclectic manner and thus not converting their ideas to BASIC. They are the ones clinging to the known.

Sorry to say Marcov you and others appear to be missing the point. I live today not yesterday nor tomorrow, altthough today does shape tomorrow, tomorrow is unwritten. What I am getting at is it is not a case of "the coat fits nice". No my friend their is no sentimentalty; I do not pine or long for things. The only emotional attachment I have to anything is My wife and family

I said Eclectic is electric: viz. "eclectic; adjective: 1. deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources".
This is me; this is how I am, always thirsting for knowledge and incorporating things from everywhere into my core. Like using things from one field to solve something in another.
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This is the eclectic me :-
Passions:-
My Wife & Family,
Psychology, Criminology, Yoga, Meditation-all kinds, Hypnosis,
Humanity, Ancient History, Religion and non-religions, Philosophy,
QB4.5/FreeBasic programming, Electronics, Computers, Radio-Rx/Tx
I have repaired. faults on :- two-way radios, Audio amplifiers, all sorts of electronic equipment, motorcars. electrical equipment. plumbing.
Built my double garage and carport, Added an extension to my house - I did the Bricklaying plumbing, lights, etc all on my own,
Wrote Poems.
Build Micro Electrical Therapy devices,
Passed the SA Amateur Radio exam without studying for it. The rules and Regulations were at that stage part of my job. Radio at that stage was already a 28 year old hobby of mine.
Drafted letters for the signature of cabinet ministers.
Still clean up old 78's, 45's and LPs after recording them to my computer and then writing them to CDs.
Recently with "look and listen transcription" I did some some sub-title files for old Dvd's that did not have subtitles.
(This was a newie for this old toppie.)
Rip DVD's and record old VHS tapes that I bought, to AVI and mp4
I still control my breathing heart rate and Blood pressure. The BP is the same as when i was 20. (I was then super fit)

Think of anything new and I become interested.
I know far too much yet I know nothing.
(I trade you my mind)
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