What Happened?

[Pete]

Thanks for the update, I really appreciate knowing more on why.  I have to say that I was genuinely worried quite a bit about the future of QB64.

QB64 is key to my business...let me explain:

Hi Dano,

Did you ever visit The QBasic Forum, back in the day? I also posted there as "Pete." I ask, because  we were on the same page, using QBasic to run a business. Same memory ceiling. I somewhat broke that ASCII ceiling by using databases to RUN, not CHAIN, other QuickBASIC exe files I needed in my office program. I think I had 14 programs in total, and each of those was close to the memory limits. Also, I was able to get about 250K per program, by making each program, usually limited to between 50-64K, into a multi-modular program. If I hadn't learned how to do that from some book, I would have needed around 40 interrelated programs to get the job done. Anyway, when this guy Rob started his QB64 project in 2007, which we hosted it over at The QBasic Forum, I help beta test it by converting and combining all of those 14 programs into one single program. I was very happy that after all the issues were worked out, and the compiler speed improved. I ended up with a fully functioning SINGLE program!

So even though I often refer to QB64 as a hobbyist language, I also know from experience, and a couple of other friends you used it similarly, that it most certainly can be used for business purposes. The only shortcoming of the language, as I see it, is as a C/C++ translator, it is nothing we can use to make mobile apps, which run on JAVA. Oh, and not for website work, except wait... a member here who goes by dbox has a neat project underway, which converts qb64 statement to JavaScript, and that, of course, will run on the Web!

Anyway, great to read your story, welcome to the forum, and I hope you enjoy your stay.

Pete

Pete,

I was around, but mostly viewing and researching the forums since most of my questions were already asked and answered by someone else.  Nothing more irritating than someone barging in with 'You gotta help me with this' when all they had to do was search and see that same question had been asked/answered a zillion times!

You were one of my heros when it came to a lot of my research!!!   I only had a few posts in those forums.

Great to see a veteran that can appreciate the limited memory troubles.  My son is in tech and wrote a substantial amount of code in his early days and I cannot get him to appreciate the simple complexity of QB64.  All he knows is the unlimited memory and calling on routines that someone else wrote!  We had a discussion about 'what if you had to write all of that from scratch'.  That was pretty much met with laughter!

I am not sure how this would be accepted (or even how/where to do it now), but I would like to give to the community my toolboxes that I have written over the years.  Some of these include:

Drop down menu: Yes, something as simple as a menu will change your programming life sooo much!

Keyboard input routine: Basic has always been missing a decent keyboard input routine.  This one is simple as:
    CALL KB_Input (StringToUse$, "control text here").
So much control is available such as exit keys, mouse exit, etc.

Also a routine for splitting BAS into BI/BM.  When you are writing a routine for $INCLUDE, you have to run it to debug it.  I think this is is clumsy to debug while your are working on your main program - not to mention that compiling over and over and over as you debug takes a LOT longer than if you were just working on the $INCLUDEd routine...so I write these routines as a stand alone program.  I place specially formatted comments at specific locations and when I have the routines debugged, I run this and it splits the .BAS into .BI/.BM and it also creates a .TXT file with all of the comments for using that routine.  Not a spectacular achievement, but one for me that is super handy.

And some other basic SUBs and FUNCTIONs that make my QB64 life so much easier!

I understand that sharing code can be a liability so I am totally understanding if this is currently a no-no...

Dano

@dano

Hi Dano

Got your PM, and I'll relay that kind offer to Steve. I tried to send you a reply, here, yesterday, but the auto-mention was not working, and apparently, it is still glitchy. Took a few edits to get it to link.

I bet we do a lot of the same SCREEN 0 stuff. Custom keyboard routines, drop down menus, app linking with SHELL commands, etc. You know for what is considered a hobby language, it can run a business pretty nicely.

As far as asking questions, in my experience the folks here are pretty good about directly answering rather than telling anyone to go blanking Google it, but I get what you mean, it's nice to have members show initiative and try to find answers in the wiki, etc. We encourage that as well.

 "I understand that sharing code can be a liability so I am totally understanding if this is currently a no-no... "

We love folks to share code here, even if it's a snippet, app, etc. that does what someone else has already posted somewhere. For instance, Steve and I both have pop-menu, keyboard and mouse routines, etc., but we love seeing the ways others handle these coding structures. The more, the merrier, and the more content here, the faster the community gets recognized by search engines, and the more folks can find and learn about QB64. That's a win.

For larger work, members usually attach zip files. I suppose my only caution is to discourage including or posting .exe files. Users would have to run those at their own risk. I simply attach .bas files. Users can see what they are about to run. I also like to post a warning if the program will make, or overwrite files, or add, delete, or change anything about the user's system.

So feel free to post away, and great to have you on board.

Pete