Powerbasic Museum 2020-B

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Paul Yuen on December 10, 2016, 04:07:27 AM

Title: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Paul Yuen on December 10, 2016, 04:07:27 AM
Hi

I'm a refugee from Power Basic, I would like to work on some 64bit computing, and would like to know what is the
best replacement for PowerBasic? What language can I use,  Delphi , C++ or other basic language.
I extend my thanks to anyone who can advise me. :(
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Bob Houle on December 10, 2016, 02:34:03 PM
http://www.jose.it-berater.org/smfforum/index.php?topic=5094.0 (http://www.jose.it-berater.org/smfforum/index.php?topic=5094.0)

Checkout the free version link on that page.
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: James C. Fuller on December 10, 2016, 02:55:50 PM
Paul,
  My prejudice recommendation right here on this board: :)
http://www.jose.it-berater.org/smfforum/index.php?board=436.0

James

Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Paul Squires on December 11, 2016, 05:19:45 AM
I moved to FreeBasic. www.freebasic.net
I have a new editor for FB called WinFBE. Get it at: https://github.com/PaulSquires/WinFBE

Jose Roca has done a tremendous amount of work for FB over the past year. His whole CWindow and other classes have been ported to FB. All of Jose's awesome code can be found at http://www.planetsquires.com/protect/forum/index.php
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Pierre Bellisle on December 12, 2016, 03:45:33 AM
This is no more than a personnal view...

Pierre

IF Plenty_of_time_and_firm_will THEN
  GOTO C
ELSE
  IF DDT_ease_of_use_alike_is_wanted > Needed_direct_power THEN
    GOTO PureBASIC
  ELSE
    GOTO freeBASIC
  END IF
END IF
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Paul Yuen on December 12, 2016, 05:34:57 AM
Many Thanks for your advice.   :)
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Patrice Terrier on December 12, 2016, 10:07:24 AM
PureBASIC and FreeBasic are exotics (they could have the same problem than PowerBASIC)

Use them as a secondary solution, but for main solution i would not make twice the same error and go to full orthodoxy:
Visual Studio C++,
realy not a problem for SDK coder, and using the full procedural coding style, then you can easily switch from one language to another.

...
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Frederick J. Harris on December 12, 2016, 02:03:52 PM
Quote
GOTO C

I feel fairly strongly that C is no replacement for PowerBASIC (no strings, arrays, etc.) .  C++ is, but that opens a tremendous 'can of worms'. 
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Patrice Terrier on December 12, 2016, 07:57:33 PM
Indeed...
In C++, VECTOR, STRING, WSTRING, are almost as easy to use as their PowerBASIC counterpart.

Even if, for myself, i try to use only WCHAR for faster and smallest code size.

...
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: James C. Fuller on December 12, 2016, 11:34:22 PM
Patrice,
  I agree but Fred has had to do "tiny" for those handhelds for so long ....
I love both, tiny with Fred's TCLib, and the FULL MONTY with the STL but I dislike c++ nomenclature.
With bc9Basic I have the best of both worlds.
If I don't have the actual intrinsics I need I can just wrap c++ code with $CCODE tags or if deemed worthy enough, add it to the translator itself :)

James
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Paul Breen on January 22, 2017, 03:24:39 AM
Embarcadero has made their starter editions of Delphi and C++ builder free,
instead of the nearly three hundred dollars it used to be. This version of c++ uses the llvm compiler instead of the old Borland compiler.
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Frederick J. Harris on January 22, 2017, 02:34:36 PM
Hi Paul!

     Haven't heard from you in awhile!  Must be out of college by now?

     I checked the website, and unless I'm seeing it wrong, you can only get a free compiler from them in 32 bit. 
Title: The beach whales syndrom
Post by: Patrice Terrier on March 09, 2017, 03:41:48 PM
Another victim of the beach whales syndrom

https://forum.powerbasic.com/forum/user-to-user-discussions/third-party-addons/758942-topic-removed-by-author

That's the problem when you put all your eggs into the same basket.
And i am not speaking of those who selected his tool for their own development  :-X
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Steve Hutchesson on April 01, 2017, 02:33:50 AM
Hi Patrice,

I think it goes to music, "Another one bites the dust". I am sorry to see someone in probable financial difficulties but you are exactly right in addressing it as the "beach whales syndrom". I am lucky in that I have 64 bit MASM which is a truly magnificent tool but I personally use PB for many of my simpler tools and little of this type of stuff is dependent on having to use 64 bit so it will remain useful to me for years to come. I try to support the PB forum but it has the same dynamics that has progressively turned it to trash for years and the practitioners of this nonsense will keep tearing it down until every decent programmer has vacated the place.

I hope Drake and Co can get it up and going again but I am not going to hold my breath waiting and the longer it flounders, the less chance there is for me to bother as 64 bit MASM can do just about anything as long as you put enough work into it.

I have just asked Jose and its reasonable to ask you as well as you have done a lot of work in GDI+ as well, where I can find enough examples or technical data to get some more GDI+ up and going in 64 bit MASM. I have Jose's help file and some MSDN stuff from about 2003 but I don't have enough information to get the context of how to use it. I have loading a disk image and loading a resource image up and going but it would be useful to be able to do a bit more, tasks like saving bitmaps back into PNG or JPG format as well as some of the display graphics capacities. Any suggestion here would be welcome.
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Patrice Terrier on April 01, 2017, 05:41:46 AM
Steve

I do have a 64-bit GDIPLUS section on my private forum at www.objreader.com
However the attachments are available only to registered users, then let me know if you want to enrole there.
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Steve Hutchesson on April 01, 2017, 10:01:30 AM
Yes !

I can also convert a 32 bit PB version so which ever is the most convenient to you. I manage C OK but may miss some of the C++ notation.

I tried to join but it will not accept registration.
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Patrice Terrier on April 01, 2017, 10:35:02 AM
Steve

Ok, i have found everything needed to register you, the password has been sent to you.
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Steve Hutchesson on April 01, 2017, 12:44:01 PM
Gratsie !
Title: Re: Refugee from Power Basic
Post by: Chris Chancellor on April 28, 2018, 07:23:17 PM
After spending about a year at Oxygen basic O2 forum,  i believe that O2 is still a good 64bit platform to
take refuge from the dying PB

the grounds for this are that

1.   O2 is very flexible ,  it can take in C format and headers  (but  minus the confusing curly brackets)

2.  O2 compiles to a very tiny native exe file similar to PB

3.  O2 syntax is more basic like than Purebasic

4.  O2 allows for inline assembly code -- this is an excellent vehicle to port codes from PB to O2

what do you think of what i stated here?