Have you guys read this thread yet? http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pbforums/showthread.php?t=54154
I don't know what Tom's been drinking but my eyes went wide open in shock and disbelief!
Jose's header files are without a doubt the most comprehensive and PB centric set of include files available. Hard to believe that Tom would take a shot at belittling Jose's incredibly generous contribution to the PB community. PB should embrace these includes and make a deal with Jose to adopt them 100% within the official PB compiler package.
This better not be a sign of things to come. :(
I had the same reaction. His initial post of "Incoming Tom" was childish, along with his "Let's get funky with Basic" slogan on his website. I do not see Powerbasic moving forward with this guy.
Hi Paul,
How are they going to adopt as the official headers a set of mechanical translations not designed for PowerBASIC? Are you crazy?
Better use the ones written by Tom, the "King of the Mambo" (this is how we call in Spain a man that has a very high oppinion of himself).
"King of the Mambo": I will remember that phrase :)
James - I had the same reaction as you when I read his previous posts. I am not being inspired with much rock solid confidence in PB's direction. Tom is surely a good programmer but he will need a lot of help from the PB community to move PB forward... and throwing rocks at Jose is certainly not the way to accomplish that!!!!
I adopted Jose's include files 100% for FF3. Best decision I've made with FireFly.
Quote from: TechSupport on December 31, 2013, 02:46:10 PM
I adopted Jose's include files 100% for FF3. Best decision I've made with FireFly.
I've written about this elsewhere, but I think the best decision PowerBasic could make is write both you and Jose a sufficiently large check to make his the official header files, and have Firefly become the official IDE (if you were both agreeable to that). I think that alone would justify an upgrade, and it would be a leap forward for the product as a whole. Presumably it would also free up resources to work on a 64-bit version, but given Tom's comments about 64-bit development in general, I guess I wouldn't hold my breath there either.
Quote from: TechSupport on December 31, 2013, 02:46:10 PM
...he will need a lot of help from the PB community to move PB forward... and throwing rocks at Jose is certainly not the way to accomplish that!!!!
Agreed 100%. Tom said he just wanted to get a little of Jose's attention, but im sure that is NOT the kind of attention i would like to get if the company was mine.
QuoteI don't know what Tom's been drinking
I have always said that drinking alcohol was not good for PB Employees.
It was not good for Bob, and if Tom does not stop immediately with drinking,
the project he is going to start is going to fail.
Kick out "Jim Bailey" and "Jeff Daniels" they are the reason for the problems.
Also would suggest - and have always suggested - to concentrate their power on making a PB x64 instead of trying to redevelope the wheel that has already been done by Jose.
Just a thought here.
If PB could get all the masters like Jose, Paul, Theo and so forth to do the same as the guys at Freebasic did, throwing together their skills and work together then nothing on earth could stop PB.
But if they kind of kick dirt in the direction of PB's biggest supporters then one is set up for failure.
Hope he loses the attitude very quickly.
Petrus
Unlike Freebasic, Powerbasic is a "for profit business" not a labor of love hobby. Powerbasic would have to be willing to buy/license Paul's and Jose's work - assuming they were willing to sell.
Jim
As far as I know, nobody is currently working in the compiler, otherwise they would need the help of the beta testers, and I have the feeling that Tom is planning to try to sell some kind of tools for PB (no details know to me about what kind of tools).
Jose, I agree. He did say in one of his posts that a couple of things were about ready to be released (implied that it wasn't the compiler itself).
Quote from: Jim Dunn on January 03, 2014, 10:56:49 AM
He also said there's a PB64 in the wings; I'm hopeful...
That Linux version is right around the corner too, so I've heard...
;) ;D
How is Tom now declaring the headers as his? I'm pretty sure he hasn't touched them in a long time. Pre-IBASIC Tom might have done some good here, but I'd have more faith in Bob coming back from the dead or finding out his mind exists in assembly in some super computer before I'd trust Tom again. Hopefully we at least get to a Version 4 of FireFly as I still use it when needed. I'd even pay a little for one final upgrade. Jose does more work on header files in one day than PowerBASIC did in 10 years on theirs.
That's for sure but Tom still had to turn his nose up at Jose's headers ::) If he had any sense he would have said "thank you" and then asked for permission to use them instead of PowerBASIC's.
Quote from: Roger Garstang on February 01, 2014, 02:44:41 PM
Jose does more work on header files in one day than PowerBASIC did in 10 years on theirs.
I began to write the headers during the beta testing of PB 9. It was not possible to test the new low-level COM support without interface definitions, was it? I suggested to use them because, otherwise, the beta testers could not test the new features, but the silence was deafening. Only James Fuller tried them. Because of this, I singlely did almost all the beta testing, except some DDT additions.
The new PB includes weren't ready until the very end of the beta testing of PB 10, and I helped to correct some mistakes and objected that there were many unneeded incompatibilities with the previous PB headers (maybe you don't have noticed it, but my headers are more compatible with the PB ones for PB 9 than the PB headers for PB 10) and many structures misaligned.
I also singlely tested the new PB COM browser, and even provided some code. Besides, they used my own browser to compare the output. Another case of wasting time reinventing the wheel, because mine was ready before they started his own and is better and faster.
Bob suggested me to add my OLE container to the distribution disc of PB 10, but I objected that it needed the use of my headers.
I also objected against the opening of my own subforum ("Jose's Corner") because it was not possible to teach low-level COM without using my headers, since the PB ones don't have the slightest support to use that technology.
I wanted to finish my work adapting the headers and wrappers to 64-bit, but...
You're saying that he created those subforums against your objections? Uh... wow.
Jose Roca, I have learned so much from you that I don't know where to begin with showing my appreciation and respect. I am by no means a COM expert, but what I know is because of the work you've done and the patience you have shown in tirelessly explaining these concepts to us dummies :)
Quote from: Michael Stefanik on February 01, 2014, 08:06:37 PM
You're saying that he created those subforums against your objections? Uh... wow.
Yes, I did object twice. The third time I said... Well, open it and we'll see what happens.
I thought that since the use of my headers was required, it was going to be a waste of time.
A recent example of a misaligned structure in the PB includes:
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pbforums/showthread.php?p=447308#post447308
The SYSTEM_POWER_POLICY structure has a BYTE member (VideoDimDisplay) between two DWORD members. I have used DWORD FILL to properly align it, but the PB includes don't. As a result, the size of the structure in the PB headers is 229 bytes instead of 232 bytes.
Mike was there for the Pyxia fiasco, IIRC. Not sure who else was. Did anybody else notice that Tom followed the exact same pattern? Posts about how great he is. Late night drunken ramblings. Starting fights with more prominent users. Then disappearing?
It was odd the first time when it happened in Pyxia, but to have the exact same thing happen again many years later is Twilight Zone odd.
Quote from: Brice Manuel on February 04, 2014, 05:05:22 AMIt was odd the first time when it happened in Pyxia, but to have the exact same thing happen again many years later is Twilight Zone odd.
It's like we're living in Gobbler's Knob, and it's February 2nd all over again.
I got burned on the Pyxia thing like everyone else. Tom asked me to port JellyFish Pro to be compatible with IBasic. I wasted so much time doing that. He had big plans for the language. Many emails but then suddenly everything stopped and he disappeared.
It looks like Brian has just posted in the 3rd party forum about his BasicToPHP product again, so we'll see if Tom crawls out of the woodwork to delete it (again), or if he stays on walkabout.
It really is a shame how the transition has been handled (not!).
I do believe the kinds of Chris Boss, Gary Beene when they state that Vivian is willing/trying to keep PB going. But I fear she has not enough technical knowledge to tell good advice from bad advice. She might be listening to people that she knows for some time (Tom), which is human nature, instead of listening to ideas on how to progress this very inconvenient situation.
My personal dream is that a couple of the (what I feel are) key PB community members would take over the PB legacy. There's so much talent and devotion for PB around, it seems like the natural way to progress. But I also recon that a lot of bridges seem to have been burned in the past. Not just after Bob's death, but even earlier by Bob himself. He was a brilliant programmer, but a bad diplomat/moderator.
For some time, this has screamed of somebody trying to take advantage of a widow and run through whatever was financially left of the company. And I am not referring to her stalker.
My feeling is there is no PowerBASIC source so why would anyone buy the company.
As paranoid as Bob was he was probably the only one with access to the complete source code.
I have felt this way from the first day I heard of his death.
I believe Eric mentioned that no one could modify a forum cgi because Bob created it and there is no source.
James
Whatever plans Bob had in place for the continuation of the product and company, likely fell apart with Jeff's accident. I initially put the over/under at six months, after Jeff's accident, but with the staff changes, I think now there will be an announcement soon making more promises that things are being worked on and more great products coming, and near the end of the fiscal year, the plug will be pulled. I think bankruptcy is inevitable. It is simply a matter of when.
I truly do hope I am wrong, as I would love to see the languages survive and see more products released.
> I believe Eric mentioned that no one could modify a forum cgi because Bob created it and there is no source.
Regrets. They have modified it after Eric's posts.
Any thoughts on what the value of PB roughly is?
I'm asking for a couple of reasons:
1) I'm curious
2) I've been an employee my whole life and have nada idea how to approach such an estimate. I don't know whether to put it near $100,000 or $10,000,000
3) If 2) is (much) closer to $100,000 than $10,000,000 ;) than I'd be willing to throw some grands into a Kickstarter/IndieGoGo kinda "user buyout". I'd know which fellow PB'ers I'd like to see leading the new PowerUserBASIC ... which doesn't mean that they would like to do it ...
3) Wishful thinking.
I'm not sure what would be accomplished by buying the company, other than to simply continue selling PowerBASIC as it exists now. My understanding is that the compiler itself is written in x86 assembler, which is inherently non-portable. If the goal was to expand its market with 64-bit and cross-platform support, I think you'd essentially be looking at a rewrite in C++ using wxWidgets or Qt4 for the UI portions. You might as well just start from scratch and just use a similar syntax to make porting existing programs as simple as possible.
QuoteAny thoughts on what the value of PB roughly is?
I can't comment on value, but it would cost you at least $160,000 to buy it based on the debt we are actually aware of. Who knows how much other debt exists.
You would simply buy the assets you're interested in (code base, customer list). Buying the shares (ie. the company) would of course get you the assets but also the corresponding debt. PB would sell the valuable assets, pay off as much debt as they can, and probably declare bankruptcy after that.
Quote from: Michael Stefanik on February 05, 2014, 02:58:05 PM
You might as well just start from scratch and just use a similar syntax to make porting existing programs as simple as possible.
Exactly. You're better off building a compiler using a more portable and higher level language, and simply emulate the existing PB language. A few years ago, PB attempted to re-write the compiler using PB itself. Looks like that was never completed probably because Bob was way too comfortable programming in ASM rather than his own PB language.
A business with tangible assets might be worth 4 times annual cashflow which is rough and dirty. Software with it short shelf life and in "as is" condition would be quite a bit less. It would of course be more, if on going improvements could be made to keep the beast alive. I sense that PowerBasic's cashflow is very weak at the moment and with the overhead of Leaderchip at a minimum, might not be positive. Being that updates of the software would be very hard (if not impossible) and throw in Eric's liability (and maybe others we don't know about) I would say the company is practically worthless. Tully sold Ionic Wind for about $3,000 a few years back - so you get the idea.
Thanks for your answers, guys.
@Jose: Yeah, I now ... but one can dream. :) I've wasted a few grands a couple of years out of the same (sentimental) reasons. But I'd still do it again. I for sure can't continue the product myself or lead a company. But I'd be willing to act as a silent small investor.
@Mike: Well, for a start I'd like to see what you suggested elsewhere: marry the compiler with one of the available IDEs. One specifically comes to mind ... ;) I've mentioned that a couple of times over at the PB forums: give me a PB compiler with a VB6 IDE - that would be a killer for me. I'm personally not much after portability other than a 64-Bit version.
@Brice: Uuh, didn't know that. I'm not asking for details, but I a few comments here and there now make more sense.
@Paul & James: not sure what to make out of this. It shows that my 'business knowledge' is non-existant.
Quote from: TechSupport on February 05, 2014, 03:17:30 PM
You would simply buy the assets you're interested in (code base, customer list). Buying the shares (ie. the company) would of course get you the assets but also the corresponding debt. PB would sell the valuable assets, pay off as much debt as they can, and probably declare bankruptcy after that.
More likely, the Bankruptcy court would sell off the assets and settle the debts at a fraction of the value. Bankruptcy can get very messy with creditors suing creditors based some perceived preferential payments. I lived through that. I keep a close eye on the accounts, clamp down before we get too badly burned, only to be sued by another creditor who wasn't so diligent.
Quote from: James OShea on February 05, 2014, 08:23:36 PM
More likely, the Bankruptcy court would sell off the assets and settle the debts at a fraction of the value.
That is the way it generally works. Never a pretty sight, either. I do truly feel sorry for Vivian.
As long as Bob set the company up properly and didn't pledge any person property, Vivian should be able to throw the company to the wolves and walk away clean. It only gets messy if there are promissory notes, Liens against personal property, etc.
My guess is there is almost no tangible property. The office was obviously rented. There website was third party. Seems like the company consists of maybe a couple of thousand dollars in equipment, a tarnished brand name, a company URL and the software source code (compilers and related programs) that while great are at the end of their lifespan as a sellable product.
I was more meaning the stress of the whole thing is why I feel sorry for her. Everything really went downhill after Jeff's accident and she has had a mess to deal with.
It will be interesting to see what the announcement will be...
Agree