What do you use FreeBASIC for?

[BasicCoder2]

In the thread, viewtopic.php?f=17&t=28451&start=30
marcov wrote:

FB's audience are mostly a bunch of old geezers making recreations of what are essential eighties and early nineties dos apps.

So is that true? Is FB used for anything professional? I know when it first came on the scene it was used to write computer games but I wonder if it is now only used mostly by old geezers writing demo code?

Thanks to D.J.Peters and some others I also use it in some hardware projects that can also run on the Raspberry Pi and some other dream projects but none of them are commercial.

None of the code I write requires DOS or would even run on DOS.

The whole appeal of FB was to write fast compiled programs using a BASIC syntax that could run on the hardware of a modern computer which would otherwise have to have been written in C++

[caseih]

@Gablea (did I get that right?) is using FB to build POS systems that I believe he sells.

[BasicCoder2]

@Gablea (did I get that right?) is using FB to build POS systems that I believe he sells.

That was for people still using old DOS machines.

[MrSwiss]

That was for people still using old DOS machines.

That was only the intention.
He never understood, that a port (to FB) from VB.NET isn't in any way simple ...
I belive there is a .NET alike library available but, mostly geared towards C.

What he sold, was the VB.NET Application.


I've written some .DLL's in FB which I'm using for a commercial program.
The program itself is using a "visual programing language" (extended by the FB .DLL's).

[badidea]

... marcov wrote:

FB's audience are mostly a bunch of old geezers making recreations of what are essential eighties and early nineties dos apps.

So is that true?

Yes, and I am proud to be part of it :-)

@Gablea (did I get that right?) is using FB to build POS systems that I believe he sells.

That was for people still using old DOS machines.

He was busy with a conversion to linux (with multiple stations linked), but I fear he gave up. I don't think freebasic was the issue, but his limited coding skills.

[deltarho[1859]]

Encrypternet was written by an old geezer with FreeBASIC using Paul Squires' WinFBE and José Roca's WinFBX. It uses Unicode throughout and is high dpi aware. There are many possible messages but none use MessageBox - all use TaskDialog centred on the Encrypternet form.

Many years ago I said if I wrote something half decent then it would be sold as shareware unless it was a cryptographic application in which case it would be freeware - Encrypternet is freeware. Quite a few friends said I was barmy. I have scoured the internet and found nothing like it. I am getting some downloads but not many. I should 'push it' but it is finding the time to do that.

[deltarho[1859]]

Come to think of it there is an example which leaves my Encrypternet standing and that is WinFBE itself which is written using FreeBASIC and WinFBX. I shouldn't think that many folk have downloaded WinFBE's source code. I have spent a little time browsing through it and it is one awesome piece of FreeBASIC code - with 123 bi and inc files. I very much doubt that anyone else has written anything like it. If you want to see the power of FreeBASIC and WinFBX then look no further.

[deltarho[1859]]

Deleted - wrong thread!

[TJF]

FB's audience are mostly a bunch of old geezers making recreations of what are essential eighties and early nineties dos apps.

So is that true? Is FB used for anything professional?

I use FB for several professional projects. One of them is libpruio, a hardware driver for a modern check-card computer series. I guess it's the only FB project mentioned at the Texas Instruments web site. The library is served with bindings for other languages (C, Phyton) and is enticing foreign users to this forum. It's used all over the world, in private home brew equipment as well as in University projects developing low cost EKG systems, or improving ultrasonic underwater measurements.

But I think marcov is right. I developed and shared many helpful tools for professional FB deployment, like cmakefbc to adapt FB to the CMake build system, or fbdoc to auto-generate documentation from FB source code with Doxygen (or GTK-Doc). But those tools are not as popular as my code beautyfier FBeauty. Most of the FB users are not interested in professional tools, they're just playing around.

[Dinosaur]

Hi All

I have 230 computerised weighing machines in Australia an USA , all running Freebasic compiled programs.
Early machines started with Dos/Masm combo, then progressed to XPe and finally to Linux.
Everything from Diamonds at 3 per second to Garbage bins (to monitor your recycling) to smoothies to complete concrete manufacturing plants.
Have converted many early ones to Linux in the last few years.

Lately I am automating a Museum with TP-Link smart switches on a Beaglebone Black as a hobby , (yes you guessed it, using FreeBasic)

AND I have no regrets in using FreeBasic.

Regards

[marcov]

But I think marcov is right. I developed and shared many helpful tools for professional FB deployment, like cmakefbc to adapt FB to the CMake build system, or fbdoc to auto-generate documentation from FB source code with Doxygen (or GTK-Doc). But those tools are not as popular as my code beautyfier FBeauty. Most of the FB users are not interested in professional tools, they're just playing around.

Mostly importantly, the underlying background for my remark was that everything is an island. Single persons making libraries, and maybe doing something commercial with them on their own, or maybe one other serious user. There is however little systematic cooperation between users with the end of furthering the shared libraries beyond the primary distribution. No integration between the varying components.

The reason that I mention that is if there is some sort of project for them and constant maintenance, people more easily mature from users to developers, or at least to knowledgable users (e.g. providing the occasional patch). That usually the start of something bigger.

Window9 might be a very early glimmer of such a start, since more people seem to use it and contribute back, but IMHO too early to tell,

The state of GUI is just one aspect of the insular nature based on competing one person projects. One could as well say unified database support, unified persistent(db XML, CSV, JSON, ini file, registry) etc, and the integration of all those with eachother. I partially also started with GUI because a lot of the non visual components (db,xml etc) are rooted in the component system that mostly had GUI+DB as design inputs.

But people just seem to want to comfort themselves that there is nothing wrong and everything is alright, and pointlessly try to pick my argumentation about by pointing to external tool this and external library that can be used as a crutch, or one-person project Z is a clear sign that something is possible. That all misses the core point.

Fine by me. I'll shut up.

[TeeEmCee]

Commercial FB projects are particularly interesting (I'd like to hear more), but you can also ask what are the largest FB programs? Well, I'm sadly ignorant, so I went looking for some. I'm going to count lines of FB code (including header files but excluding bindings and thirdparty libraries) because while we all know that's problematic, it does give an idea of the scale of the project.

I'm amazed how many GUI frameworks, GUI builders, IDEs, and libraries there are. Where are the significant applications and games (well there are numerous games, but which are major projects)?

FreeBasic:
125118 LoC of FB (the compiler itself)
plus 61195 LoC of C (rtlib & fbgfx)
plus 125053 LoC of FB (tests, including fbcunit)
plus 73049 LoC of FB (examples, many are translated from other languages, eg. NeHe)
plus 31755 LoC of FB (other utilities, mostly for doc generation, such as libfbdoc)
(Not going to include inc/. 503kLoC if you're wondering)
In total, 355570 LoC of FB

OHRRPGCE - essentially a recreation of a nineties dos game creation engine, to paraphrase marcov :)
151090 LoC (plus approx 30643 LoC in other languages and 13690 LoC in scripts)

fb-ext-lib FreeBASIC-Extended-Library
61719 LoC

WinFBE FreeBASIC Editor for Windows
45114 LoC (excludes examples, which seem to be almost entirely from WinFBX)

WinFBX Windows Framework for FreeBASIC
16009 LoC
plus 59289 LoC of examples (many ported from elsewhere, eg NeHe)

MyFbFramework - a forms building, drawing and etc. library for the FreeBASIC programming language
35323 LoC

fbfrog C-to-FB header translator
33702 LoC

fbrtlib (FB's rtlib ported from C to FB)
31075 LoC

VisualFBEditor: cross-platform IDE for FreeBasic with visual designer, debugger, project support and etc, based on the library MyFbFramework
30635 LoC (includes a few examples, there aren't many)

Prompt Critical a unique 3D first person perspective space shooter
23209 LoC

Station922 - HTTP server written in FreeBASIC for Windows
18190 LoC

libpruio Fast and easy Input/Output driver for digital/analog lines on Beagleboard hardware
9731 LoC (plus 4707 LoC in other languages)

FROST: 32-bit operating system based on a microkernel written in FreeBASIC
8179 LoC (plus a little asm)


(I'll edit this post if anyone suggests any notable large projects)

[thebigh]

I'm trying and failing to make a game with FreeBASIC and OpenGL.

[SARG]

I would have liked not to throw me flowers myself :-)
Fbdebugger 14500LoC, only with Windows API.
I learned a lot but with a bit (a lot) of pain.

Now what I do with FreeBasic, main purpose is keep my brain working :-) :
- Coding for FreeBasic (debugger, Gas64)
- Quick testing of algorithm ideas
- Games. I should release the draft of the most advanced one, a bit dormant for now....

[Munair]

Most of the FB users are not interested in professional tools, they're just playing around.

That is very much reflected here on this forum and by the fact that FB is practically at the same position in the programming world as it was about 10 years ago.

There are much more powerful languages these days and the philosophy of programming, as it is being adopted by new generations, has changed significantly since the days of BASIC and Pascal. As a result, compilers based on and maintaining compatibility with these traditional languages, will eventually enjoy a very small margin (if at all) in the world of programming.