BASIC

[John]

Am I the only BASIC developer doing anything? How long is this nonsense of PowerBASIC's demise going to stifle the BASIC community? I'm getting tired of talking to myself on this forum and if things don't change and there is some participation from the other developers here, this resource is going away as well. I can only accept the I'm too busy to participate story for so long.


             OR         

BASIC is a fundamental language. It defines the rules of the road no matter what you end up driving.

[John]

I don't know if BASIC is already dead, but it's obviously dying. The fact that we have this topic here is one of many proofs of that.

I view trying to kill off BASIC is like trying to kill off access to a OS console. BASIC is what gives most curious new  programmers the confidence to expand on their new learned skills. The goal of BASIC has always been to reduce complexity to the minimum and allow the language to make intelligent assumptions. (and be a maid at the same time)

The only BASIC I think is dying are those trying to make a buck off it. If the phrase selling snow cones in Antarctica rings a bell, that is where BASIC vendors stand today.  The PowerBASIC, PureBASIC and ProvideX commercial BASIC languages are seeing the last of their days. A painful thing to watch actually.

 

[John]

50 years after Basic, most users still can't or won't program anything

When Dartmouth College launched the Basic language 50 years ago, it enabled ordinary users to write code. Millions did. But we've gone backwards since then, and most users now seem unable or unwilling to create so much as a simple macro

Happy 50th Birthday BASIC. (as many dance on your grave)

[tbohon]

Although I don't use BASIC as much as I used to I'm still writing utilities, etc. at work in one dialect or another.  Which one I use depends on my mood du'jour ...  However when I can sit down, code and test a solution to an issue with data or file parsing, etc. in 20 minutes vs firing up Visual Studio 2013 (which is our corporate standard development suite) I just do it, solve the problem and move on.

I really can't see BASIC going away any time soon ... despite the apparent lack of participation on the various boards dealing with the language it's still being used all over the place.

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Happy Birthday to BASIC and to all its supporters!

Despite all disbelief, despondency and decay around me, I refuse to concede there being no BASIC around us in another 50 years from now. My inner ego tells me it's gonna be like another Klondike or Eldorado: someone will find a hidden track or pull a hidden string or just turn a hidden handle some day and there it'll go - a brand new TB, or QB, or VB, whatever, in its full glory. History always goes up in spirals and I think we simply don't know or can't foretell its period correctly.

My irrational ego has hardly ever slipped me. Not that I will see that other 50th anniversary though...

[John]

As the name implies, BASIC was created to take complex tasks using the minimal of user interaction to return results in a timely cost effect means. I lost my cursive writing skills being a programmer using a keyboard all the time. I feel computer users have lost their skills and interest in programming due to the fanatics that think a language isn't a language unless the OS API is an integral part of it's syntax.

[Mike Lobanovsky]

I feel computer users have lost their skills and interest in programming due to the fanatics that think a language isn't a language unless the OS API is an integral part of it's syntax.

I am one such fanatic. And the utmost ease of use of system API's, so that each and every one of 2,500 preloaded kernel, user, and gdi functions as well as thousands other 3rd-party API's would look and act exactly like genuine BASIC, asm and C keywords would without the associated header file hell, was the very reason why I created my own Freestyle BASIC Script Language.

Hmmmm come to think of it, they are all being colored orange in my Eclecta Editor now. Wait here while I go and recolor them in blue: LINE, POLYGON,  PRINT, TEXTOUT, GOTO, CALLWINDOWPROC...

That's it, John. I'm back. That was the final touch.

Now come lynch me.

[John]

I think what the article was getting at is BASIC is no longer a prerequisite to computing. Aurel is a perfect example of someone who gets lost if he has to open a console window. I spend most of my day in an editor or a console. The only GUI apps I use on a regular basis is UltraEdit, my e-mail client and Firefox for browsing the internet. I use a GUI file manager half the time. Linux is a great environment for guys like me.

 

[Mike Lobanovsky]

There are a lot of BASIC's whose only visible activity is a few lines printed out to the console and that are unaware of the graphics OS they live in. There's that mindteq dot com where one can go and choose some such for their enjoyment. Alternatively, one can go to basicprogramming dot org and find yet more of them still being used by people that enjoy retro-programming. What's the problem with that?

Yet modern operating systems are all graphical. 99% of a typical contemporary user's feedback from their digital device (PC, notebook, tablet, smartphone, whatever) would come in graphic images which are incongruously more informative and efficient than stingy terminal output. You can't match the requirements of a graphics environment unless your language is equipped with adequate means to create, and interact with, the host OS' graphical entities. Your BASIC then simply won't be, er, entertaining and practical enough for the user.

I utilize graphics IDE's and RAD's for programming and this is only where I use my fingers for typing and debugging my code. Otherwise I use my mouse to interact with dozens other utilities like binary explorers and disassemblers, window spies, file comparators, resource viewers and editors, and what not. This software is abundant under Windows and all of it is equipped with swanky GUI's. And I don't see why FBSL users shouldn't be able to enjoy these riches along with me.

We're living in different universes with you, John, and I'm not at all sure your ways are the best ones to follow these days.

[John]

Yet modern operating systems are all graphical.

Not true. 90% or better of all webservers are administered via a headless SSH interface. Don't let a GUI environment be your crutch. Remember you are a developer and not a casual user checking e-mail and buying crap off the web.

 

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Administering a web server is a very specific technological task. Narrowing a contemporary BASIC down to such trivialities (from the user's perspective) would not be reasonable IMHO. For example, CSV, hashing, and sockets are just three of a dozen or more functionalities implemented in FBSL natively. If you're restricting Linux virtues to web services only then why would you need a Linux BASIC at all?

Don't ever tell this to elementaryOS, Gtk+ 3 or LinuxMint devs. At least I wouldn't dare do that if I were you.

There are crowds of people who have grown up into professional Windows programming along with Visual Basic that hasn't had the slightest trace of any console mode at all. Neither do thinBasic or OxygenBasic support it natively. Does that diminish the advantages of these BASIC's in the eyes of their users? I believe not in the least.

Remember you are a developer

As a developer, I can write a console BASIC on a paper scrap on my knee with a pencil in my hand. I don't need a computer for that. But will such a BASIC be fun for a kid user to grow up with?

[John]

If you're restricting Linux virtues to web services only then why would you need a Linux BASIC at all?

I think the Script BASIC multi-thread web server that runs as a service would be useless without the ability to run the same BASIC code used on the desktop.

To get back on topic, my point is that without BASIC or simple macro skills the user base becomes dumb appliance users that spend most of their time downloading ring tones or trying to figuring out how to save the last phone call for the speed dial function.

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Off-topic started here:

... due to the fanatics that think a language isn't a language unless the OS API is an integral part of it's syntax...

and this is where it degenerated into barefaced flood:

without BASIC or simple macro skills the user base becomes dumb appliance users

There is no relation between the words "BASIC", "simple", "macro", and "dumb". "Beginner" doesn't mean "dumb ass", "All-purpose" doesn't mean "simple", and "Symbolic Instruction Code" doesn't mean "macro". BASIC used to be an integral part of Sinclair's or Atari's operating systems and the only means of user programmable communication with these devices - in fact, the operating system's backbone. The systems are gone for good but BASIC is here. It faces different challenges and accommodates itself to different environments. It's imbibing concepts and solutions it never knew before. It is unnatural to expect they can be tucked into the Procrustean bed of a "simple macro" any more. BASIC is a high-level programming language and it has an indispensable right to unhindered development. Enough of GoSubs and Returns, line numbers and console prints, and other snows of the yesteryear. Let eager minds enjoy enlightment while the dumb will stay dumb until humanity learns to repair DNA and does away with booze, dope, and inbreed.

I do not feel like taking part in this fruitless bipartisan discussion any more. We need a new ISO/IEC Standard for a 4th generation BASIC for Mr.John Spikowsky to realize how hopelessly far behind the reality his BASIC ideas are in the year of 2014.

[John]

Are you saying that the traditional BASIC language that was created 50 years ago and still used in many languages as its foundation is irrelevant?

I'm not against change and evolution but BASIC is about not scaring the user away. If you feel dissociated with traditional BASIC than call FBSL an advanced implementation of BASIC or BASIC PLUS or .... Script BASIC offers an embeddable scripting API based on traditional BASIC and allows the user to add-in whatever else is needed via extension modules. (normally written in C[BASIC])

Maybe we should change the topic focus to what does the word BASIC mean to you?
 

[Mike Lobanovsky]

Please read this first then count how many BASIC generations your notion of "traditional BASIC" lags behind what is considered a traditional BASIC in the 21st century. A third-generation Visual Basic 6 was introduced in the year of 1998, which was still two years before the end of the twentieth century. Doesn't that ring the bell?

It was discontinued in 2008 but there are still hundreds of thousands of programmers who prefer it over Visual Basic .NET. It is still among the most popular programming and most cited languages on the net.

Now VB6 is the tradition. Everything that doesn't fall into its paradigm or isn't directly modeled after it is stone-age BASIC. How well do your "web server", or "console-only", or "simple macro" notions fit in VB6's paradigm?

No, my implementation of FBSL's BASIC is unfortunately not PLUS. It's a bare-bones MINUS squared compared to the already 16-year old but mightier than ever VB6. And I will not come back to PowerBASIC or FreeBASIC that were generation 2, to say nothing of QB-style retro-BASIC's. Where do those BASIC's that Ed Davis is so fond of benchmarking at BP.org stand compared to, say, Turbo Basic or QuickBasic 4.5? Yet one more generation behind. But I know that my FBSL, in its BASIC part, is undoubtedly within generation 3 and I'm still alive enough to see it grow into generation 4, so help me God, which will be a) graphical, b) 64-bit capable, and c) multiplatform.

So for me, "retro" is already anything that's less functional than the late PBWin 10 and less graphical than the dated VB6. In my opinion, if a developer isn't targeting those in his work, then he's too early to think about the future - he's got more urgent matters to attend to in his present yet.