How Many Years Until QB64ers are CALL OBSOLETE?

[Unseen Machine]

Its called "Bloat" and something most modern things suffer from...hence why now to ME qb64 is my scripting language. I use C flavoured C++ (avoids the transpiler bs), removes basically all limitations Qb64 has and blows the doors off whats doable!

@SMcNeill - Surely arbiters and flags could be used in compiling to remove all the bloat? I know its not a priority thing but WHY include something if you dont use it! 

Me

[bplus]

Who the heck cares about how big the exe is? Its not like 1984 when space was precious. Seems your precious time flaggin a bunch of unneeded stuff would be a greater concern.

[Pete]

QuickBASIC had compiler switches so users could determine what and what not to add in the compiled product (exe). If you didn't need to print anything, there was a switch code to remove the printer library from the compiled project.

Pete

[madscijr]

"I'd feel like an idiot taking a few months to code something that I could get a machine to make for me, just as soon as I asked for it."
...
AI, however, can and will be much more flexible and especially creativity as expanding its creativity is what will allow it to grow. So I guess I'll think about embracing AI as a tool in the near future,
...

I'm way late to this thread, but I'll chime in that whether ai writes the code or you do it yourself or have your intern junior programmer do it, in the end you're still going to have an idea of what you want it to do, to look like, etc. You're still going to want to communicate that to whoever implements it. And if you want to work on it later, or share it with anyone to collaborate with, you'll want the definition documented (the "specs" and/or "source code").

AI only means that now you get to create the definition, rules and description in plain English (or whatever language) or form you like. AI should be smart enough to understand it. If you prefer to communicate your programs in limericks and sketches on cocktail napkins, so be it!

You'll get to choose how detailed you want to define your programs. You might be really, really specific about certain parts and let ai fill in the rest. It could be a process of refinement - as you test your app, you just tweak the definition to be more specific until you get what you want.

So what if your cousin Igor wants to help or has an idea for a new feature, but he doesn't enjoy limericks and can't draw on napkins? Igor prefers QB64 or maybe medieval Japanese. No problem! The AI will just present the definition of your app in a form that Igor understands and finds it easiest to work with.

So Pete, I do see how AI could help us be more creative by letting us use any language we want to define and describe our creations, in whatever level of detail we choose.

[Pete]

I do think as more coders rely on AI they will see their coding style change towards that of the AI. I do wonder how standardized AI coding style will be, especially with all the different competing models in play. Who knows, maybe they'll all get together a Davos and have a conference about it someday. Newsome will attend, and get shafted just like in the recent one over finance, but I digress... 

AI needs to get really good someday or what we'll get is some grunt work pushed out that is buggy and we'll find ourselves spending just as much time acquainting ourselves with the AI style of coding before we can fix it. Now on the positive side, AI seems to be good at adding comments, so that should help, especially if the user can request those comments be more explicit to understand the code. I think AI will also do a very good job with naming variables, which I admittedly struggle with. b$ = Inkey$ WTF?

Pete

[Unseen Machine]

I got AI code with RETURN and GOSUB recently! Made me mad! AI said, sorry i feel into old methods!

[Pete]

Shame on you! Special needs AI are robots, too!

Pete 

[ahenry3068]

I got AI code with RETURN and GOSUB recently! Made me mad! AI said, sorry i feel into old methods!

    I actually still use GOSUB but I use it within named SUB's and functions.    In a couple other languages I use I can do named SUB's within the name
Space of a larger SUB.    Doing a GOSUB within a named SUB is a solution if I need access to the local variables of a SUB but don't want to break out another
named sub and pass more parameters !

[madscijr]

I do think as more coders rely on AI they will see their coding style change towards that of the AI. I do wonder how standardized AI coding style will be

Well see, my point is that AI will be smart enough to understand and render the source code in whatever style fits the personal style and brain patterns of the person reading & developing it. Who needs to bother learning some clunky designed by committee "standard" some eggheads came up with? Just look what they did to HTML! Defining tables after CSS? Agh! In the least, you could tweak it to be more to your liking. As long as the definitions and rules are defined at the necessary detail, the ai will be able to render the code in whatever style they like. Don't bend to fit the ai - let "the mountain come to Mohammed"! 

And yes, it is already pretty good at documenting code!

[Pete]

That will be a long time coming. Right now, I can't even get Alexa to figure out who's playing in the NFL playoffs. What I find disturbing is by the time it can write code in the style of the coder, it will probably also demand free health care.

Pete