What is everyone doing these days?

[Paul Squires]

Hi Everyone,

Yes, it sure is quiet on the PowerBasic sites these days. I think we can finally once and for all conclude that PB is not a worth while long term programming investment. If not for Gary Bean then I fear that the site would just be a ghost town.

I am curious as to what all you guys have been doing over the past two years. I have been all over the place in regards to programming. I took time to learn C# but it never stuck with me because around the same time I thought that maybe cross platform programming would be my preference. I then took a stab at C++ and was getting pretty good at it but after a while it seemed like my heart just wasn't into the "C" family of languages. I migrated back to FreeBasic and that is where I am now. I am developing tools for FB and that will be my desktop programming language. I am enhancing FireFly for FreeBasic, writing a grid control for FreeBasic, and writing a GUI library for FreeBasic. All my new FreeBasic tools will be free and open source. If enough of you want to move over to FreeBasic then maybe I could create a new programming forum to help all of us with the transition - just a thought.  

However, for the past two months I have done a LOT of web programming. This was really my first time developing a large business website (for a friend) that included many technologies: HTML, CSS, JavaScript, AngularJS, Bootstrap, JQuery, dhtmlx library, MySQL, PHP and PayPal integration with IPN support. I can honestly say that it was the most fun that I have had programming in quite a long time. Hopefully the opportunity will arise to do more of this type of work/fun in the future.

Firefly for PowerBasic - basically there is not much to say on this topic. I can't invest into anymore large updates/upgrades at this time. I don't expect to ever see a 64 bit version of PowerBasic so eventually the PowerBasic user base will slowly dwindle away unfortunately. I have legacy applications that depend on PowerBasic and Firefly so I will have to maintain FireFly/PB for quite some time. I expect that many of you have many applications in FireFly/PB and will need support for quite some time to come.

[Elias Montoya]

 Interesting path you took Paul, i also tried C sharp but i didnt like it either.

About the PowerBASIC website, let me tell you, it may look dead on the surface, but (at least for me) lately it has a lot of activity underneath.

I knew a little Java from a long time ago, and i tried it again but hated it (or re-hated it). However, Android uses Java and we were hired develop a compiler for Android and android applications. We currently have a working Android compiler (our property) that we are improving everyday and we also have the iOS foundations for another compiler with PowerBASIC syntax.

If you have made a lot of web programming, i humbly suggest you to take a look at BasictoPHP, it makes programming with web applications inmensely easier, specially with applications that require MySQL. I have created appliccations which include the following technologies: Javascript, MySQL, Ajax, PayPal, (and full IPN support), PayZA, Stripe (which i like more than paypal because funds go directly to your bank account instead of an 'electronic purse'), jQuery, HTML, CSS and few other technologies that adapt very well with BasictoPHP. The only problem is that once you get the hang of it you get paid less working by the hour, than working with raw code directly.

I understand you very well about the Firefly part, it is hard to do something that doesnt report any income these days. Should you release a Firefly for Freebasic, i will check it for sure! I have never tried Freebasic but just for getting a Firefly for it, would worth it. Now, if you want to do something with Android, How about a Firefly for Android? You could even use BasictoPHP to interface with it.

By the way, you were kind enough to give me a free Upgrade to Firefly, (I haven't forgotten!!), so, if you want i can give you a free license for BasictoPHP for Android. Just, wink or something. I made an appliccation that intergates an android application communicating with a PHP application via TCP/IP and everything works incredibly well, so, if you had fun programming web applications you might enjoy this a lot! What it does is allowing restaurant customers to make their orders from their phone, then the order go immediately to a big screen in the kitchen and another big screen to the waiters. Customer makes their order, confirms it and the order goes to the kitchen, when done, the cook confirms it as done and it goes to the waiters, deliver it to the table and confirms it as served... everything works smoothly and the android app looks awesome. It could hardly be more fun!

Nothing like working in what one likes.

[David Kenny]

All my new FreeBasic tools will be free and open source
...
I can't invest into anymore large updates/upgrades (to FF) at this time.

Would you consider releasing your source for FF for others to modify for personal use?  If you are not interested in letting it go completely, maybe to people who build and test new features and who also agree to submit source code to you for review and possible inclusion?

[Elias Montoya]

Would you consider releasing your source for FF for others to modify for personal use?  If you are not interested in letting it go completely, maybe to people who build and test new features and who also agree to submit source code to you for review and possible inclusion?

I would be so happy about that! I would like to add a couple features to firefly and (try to) fix couple glitches that have haunted me for the past couple years.

[Gary Stout]

Should you release a Firefly for Freebasic, i will check it for sure! I have never tried Freebasic but just for getting a Firefly for it, would worth it.

I agree!!! I have looked briefly at FB, but have not done anything with it, but if FF was able to be used with it, big bonus!!!

Paul, I don't think you even have to open source it....I don't expect you to provide us with these tools for free...I would be happy to pay for your expertise!

Gary

[James Fuller]

Paul,
  I did look into FreeBasic again when the new 64bit was announced but I found the deviation from the norm on 32 -> 64 datatypes turned me off. ( as you may have picked up on the forum). Also the lack of 64bit headers was a big PIA. Yes I do know some (all) are available now but time is not.
Will FreeBasic FF be cross platform 32/64?

  I am quite content with bc9Basic and Windows. I've been the Linux route with FreeBasic, ubx, and more recently with UbxWx but Linux does little for me these days.

James

[Bob Houle]

Hi Paul,

As you know, I am a strong supporter of PureBasic. It seems there's no limit to it's strengths.

Since you've been into web development....

SpiderBasic was just released...

(from the home page)

"SpiderBasic is new web client-side programming language based on established BASIC rules. Its main purpose is to allow development of very complex, windowed based web applications. It provides a large commandset to handle complex and reactive GUI, 2D games, and many more in a coherent manner. Every library and commands behave the same and have similar syntax for easier and faster learning. The full documentation can be found here.

SpiderBasic is a compiler which generates optimized JavaScript, which needs a modern browser to run (HTML5). As a compiler, it has strong typing and various checks that JavaScript doesn't provide, allowing robust code construction. SpiderBasic is not object oriented because we do believe that object oriented programs are very hard to maintain. Instead we provide flexible namespace support and many other features.

SpiderBasic is based on the PureBasic syntax, and is compatible to some degree with it. If you are already familiar with PureBasic, using SpiderBasic should be an easy task. It's even possible to create a program which runs on the web and on the desktop using the same source code."

A demo version is available on the web-site: http://www.spiderbasic.com/index.php


Stay well my friend,
--Bob

[Paul Squires]

I am not fond of releasing FireFly/PB source code nor licensing it for private use. I am very open to still maintaining that version and even adding features that the community deems as important (except for things like Unicode support which would involve a complete rewrite of the guts of Firefly).

Maybe you can start a separate thread and FireFly users can comment on the features that they would like to have that are currently missing. I would be willing to devote time to add features that are not too complicated.  I could review the ideas and then maybe have everyone vote for the top 3 or 4 ideas to be implemented?

[Paul Squires]

Not sure if everyone realizes this or not but Jellyfish Editor and Firefly already exist for FreeBasic.

[Paul Squires]

Hi James, a couple of days ago dkl released another test package with the full 64 bit api headers included. I have not yet converted Firefly to handle the new includes but I will very soon. Once that is done, Firefly/FB will be fully 32 and 64 bit compatible (that is, the programs generated by Firefly will be 32/64. Firefly/FB itself will remain 32 bit because it is written in PowerBasic).

[Paul Squires]

Elias and Bob - thanks for the info on BasicToPHP and SpiderBasic. I have heard and read a bit on each. They both sound quite interesting

[David Kenny]

I am not fond of releasing FireFly/PB source code nor licensing it for private use.

I was pretty sure that you felt that way in the past.  With the info you gave about your FreeBasic tools being "free and open source", coupled with your statements that seem to indicate you don't think PB will come back, I had to ask.  Being the optimist that I am, I will take this as an indication that you still have (at least a little) hope.

[Mark Strickland]

Paul,

Glad to see some activity from you.  Also glad to see that I am not the only person around that does not like the various "C" dialects.  I really find BASIC comfortable and logical.

I have moved from PowerBASIC to doing mostly XOJO development these days.  I have built several major Web Apps.  XOJO has some quirks but the community is large and the company is pretty active.  Their latest release will compile iOS apps as well as desktop (Windows/OSX/Linux) and Web Server Apps on the same three platforms.  The biggest downside is the price.  To stay on the maintenance "bandwagon" is expensive if you use the full suite.

We never did finish our book.  Maybe someday.

I am happy to see you get back to some joy of programming.  Too bad about PowerBASIC.

I have a new day job (8 months now) and it has been great.  I work for the University of Louisville Med School.  I am working toward building a consolidated data warehouse of sorts and creating some little apps along the way.  My boss connects me to some stakeholders and leaves me along to find them a solution.  I work on campus two days per week and the other three at home.

So keep in touch by the forum here.  I will try to keep an eye on the happenings.

Mark Strickland

[Gary Stout]

Not sure if everyone realizes this or not but Jellyfish Editor and Firefly already exist for FreeBasic.

Thanks Paul for the info....I didn't realize this. I assume that Jellyfish is the same as used for PB with maybe a different keyword file???

Thanks again,
Gary

[Paul Squires]

Hi Gary - yes, pretty much. Just tweaked a few things here and there to make it FB compatible (keywords, compiler setup, etc)