A Serious Article Debating the Pros and Cons of FreeBASIC

[angros47]

The problem is there is no official download page that we could link to different distros

I just had a look at your site: in the main page (structured like a "news" section), there is a link, but on the side menu there isn't (or, at least, I haven't found it). You should put it under "downloads" (maybe with a reassuring message, like "Get FreeBasic and start programming NOW!"), or nobody will notice it.

[vdecampo]

@angros47

Well make me a cool icon or banner and I will do it! :)

Actually it is a good idea but when I said official I meant off the FreeBASIC.net main page.

-Vince

PS: I would love to redesign the main page. Could we change the main page and move the existing page to a sub-page?

This is a nice page...
http://www.thinbasic.com/

[angros47]

Have a look at this:

http://cooltext.com/Buttons

You can enter the slogan "Download FreeBasic and start programming NOW" (or whatever you like), select a font and it generates images of the banner (even a "selected" version to use with onMouseOver, if you want).

With the "Orbiter" font I god a nice button... try it.

[aurelVZAB]

People almost everything what you say on this topic is true.
I look in FB like a new user(which i probably i am- but i'm not new in basic!)
FB distros hmm maby is not bad idea at all.
Dont get me wrong.
I'm little bit confused like new user in FB what is what.
It looks like 3 language in one- exellent.
But this is very confusing for new peoples especialy youngs.

[Eponasoft]

What I would like to see is a total removal of all Linuxisms in the Linux port. FB Linux is far too entrenched in Linux-specific libraries. It should have strived for POSIX compliance instead so it could be used on a far wider range of operating systems.

[DrV]

Nearly everything in the Linux port is already generalized to use POSIX functions, where available, and work has been done in the direction of supporting other UNIX-like OSes. Have you tried it on your desired target? At the very least, minimal "hello world" (including fbgfx) works on FreeBSD and OpenBSD. Mac OS X support is probably not far from working, but it would require someone with a Mac to actually test and fix the last few pieces.

[Eponasoft]

I have tried the latest stable build of fbc linux in FreeBSD 7.2 with no success. Even a simple Hello World program, with a one-line PRINT statement and nothing else, fails to compile, citing issues with libc (and that was after resolving several other issues as well). Furthermore, the normal installer does not work in FreeBSD, so everything has to be installed manually, which can be a real chore.

Code: Select all

fbc: Symbol `ospeed' has different size in shared object, consider re-linking
/usr/lib/libc.so: could not read symbols: Invalid operation

If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears...err, eyes. :)

[Zippy]

I have tried the latest stable build of fbc linux in FreeBSD 7.2 with no success. Even a simple Hello World program, with a one-line PRINT statement and nothing else, fails to compile, citing issues with libc (and that was after resolving several other issues as well). Furthermore, the normal installer does not work in FreeBSD, so everything has to be installed manually, which can be a real chore.

Code: Select all

fbc: Symbol `ospeed' has different size in shared object, consider re-linking
/usr/lib/libc.so: could not read symbols: Invalid operation

If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears...err, eyes. :)

Ignore that error. See the Linux fora for the repeat of.. ignore that error.

[Eponasoft]

An error cannot be ignored. Error = no funciona. As I stated, libc is the source of the issue, and because of this, compilation fails.

[DrV]

I haven't tried it recently, but I wrote instructions some time ago for building on FreeBSD; the prebuilt binary linked at the top of the page should be enough to get you started.

Judging by your error message, you might be using a Linux linker on FreeBSD; you need to use the native FreeBSD binutils (ld, as, etc.).

[Eponasoft]

Linux compatibility is installed, but the system already uses the native binutils. I'm going to try installing a Linux distro into vmware to cross-compile, though this is certainly not the preferred method...

By the way...your pre-compiled version is a great idea, but fbrt0.o isn't included so it's not terribly useful... :( and the version that comes with the latest FB doesn't work with it.

EDIT: Well, nevermind...the only vmware that works in FBSD is 3, and it fails to run properly. OOH WHAT A SURPRISE.

[AGS]

And about distros? Should be done? Do you think that it could attract more developers? Solve some problems? Or create more troubles than benefits?

I created an FB/FBEdit installer that is preconfigured with help files and everything. I did not see a big download demand. The problem is there is no official download page that we could link to different distros. Unless someone searched the forums they would never find my installer.

http://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewtopi ... =installer

-Vince

Put it on sourceforge.net and you'll see the amount of downloads go up. As long as you put binaries out on this forum you will not get the attention you'd get when you put it on sourceforge.net

Just look at the project stats for FBEdit. From the moment it was put on sourceforge it got quite some downloads (with peaks during the periods something new was released?).

And did your release have updated external libraries (import libraries/include files), an up to date help file (you'd have to build it yourself from the wiki) etc....?

I for one did download your FB/FBEdit installer. But I'm on this forum regularly. That does not hold true for many programming enthousiasts that are more likely to take a look at what's on sourceforge.

[-OOPSIE-]

As a bad programmer, could I put in a request that you make all these big word features that have been mentioned, very optional, tucked out of the way and not on by default.

To me, Basic should be basic. It's even in the name!

But programming languages are written by people who are good at programming. And they get all these ideas about amazing and complicated features, which I'm sure are great for good programmers! But for bad programmers, they've off putting.

For example, on another website, there was a post by a guy, who just wanted to perform a simple task. He thought he'd use his knowledge of basic from the 80s to write a small ten line programme to do what he wanted.

He ended up download half a dozen basics from various places, but couldn't get any of them to do what he wanted. He was really, really annoyed! Back in the 80s as a teenager, he used to be able to turn on his computer, type in a few lines and it would work!

I asked him if he'd if he'd tried FreeBasic. And he had! But had given up within 10 minutes, because he couldn't work it.

I told him to download FBIDE, and how to set it up. And I told him the command to make FreeBasic act like older basics, so he could use line numbers and the like.

And I know exactly what he was feeling. I was almost put off FreeBasic myself because I couldn't get it to work. Luckily, I kind of bungled through, and now I can manage to make it work.

But I swear, I know I don't use it properly. I don't like IDEs. I've ran into them in a few places, and they annoy the crap out of me. I just want to do a simple idea, or to mess about, and yet I've got to set up all this IDE crap. By trial and error almost, I figured out how to make FBIDE work, but I don't even touch 99% of the things in it.

I know without a shadow of a doubt, that IDEs are great, and amazing and useful things to good programmers.

But I don't intend to learn to be a good programmer. I just want to mess about and have fun, or to do the occasional simple task. I'm not intending to write 10,000 line projects that can put man on the moon. The longest programme I have ever written, was about 500 lines. And it was done a little bit at a time over the course of months.

And out of the hundreds of languages there are, like C and Perl and Ruby and Lisp and C++ and whatever, can't we bad programmers have just one basic, simple programming language? Something I can just download, double click and start typing, and bang my little ten line program works!

Please?

[marcov]

As a bad programmer, could I put in a request that you make all these big word features that have been mentioned, very optional, tucked out of the way and not on by default.

To me, Basic should be basic. It's even in the name!

But programming languages are written by people who are good at programming. And they get all these ideas about amazing and complicated features, which I'm sure are great for good programmers! But for bad programmers, they've off putting.

Doesn't one of the commercial products satisfy you?

Because it is very frustrating for a developer that puts in all of his spare time for free for people that already give up after 10 minutes.

If an user can't be bothered to invest a sane amount of time, I can't be bothered to make him succceed in 10 minutes.

Simply because to make that target, everything and anything must be limited and adapted to simplify the system to make that 10 minute deadline. That takes out the fun of developing and turns it into a job, with whining impatient customers that are unwilling to invest anything themselves.

That's my personal opinion of course.

------------

I'm no FBer, but I think proper inheritance is absolutely necessary. Without it, (or something more advanced that substitutes it, like fully dynamically objects) OOP barely makes sense.

Of course it can be confined to certain language modes. But if you ever want to have an halfwhat decent GUI system, where you don't have to continuously have to typecast, you'll need it.

[DrV]

By the way...your pre-compiled version is a great idea, but fbrt0.o isn't included so it's not terribly useful... :( and the version that comes with the latest FB doesn't work with it.

The runtime libraries (fbrt0.o included) should build out of the box from SVN on FreeBSD without problems. I don't think the Linux-compiled version of fbrt0.o will work correctly on FreeBSD. In any case, I might have some time in the near future to set up a VM with FreeBSD again and get an up-to-date build of the compiler ready.