Development Forum access?

Keeling · Post by **Keeling** » Aug 10, 2005 18:09

I never said open discussion was bad. If I had my preference there would be no closed forums.

However, there are a couple of items here that I recognize:

1) While this is open source, its still Vic's picnic I'm just happy to be invited. He was the one who started this; not me, not you, not most of the people here. As such if he feels that the developers' forum should be a members only group he is entitled to it. It is true that while without 'us' (the users) FB wouldn't be where it is today, that doesn't mean that we have to know every detail. As an analogy, space exploration is one of humankind's greatest achievements, but that doesn't mean that the average Joe needs to add his two cents worth in during an engineer's meeting.

2) Yes prejudice is a reality, but it doesn't mean that it has to be propagated. One of the happiest days of my life was when my family was watch a movie (Wild Wild West to be exact) and a scene came on where two character were verbally insulting one another with thinly veiled racially and handicapped based remarks. My sons didn't catch the racial insults. They were raised in a multi-cultural environment were no one made a big deal of race. They have since realized what was going on and find it funny; funny that people used to think that way. While the prejudice against BASIC is truly trivial compared to that which man has put against man, the analogy holds true: isn't funny how people used to think.

My $0.02 worth

Thulefoth · Post by **Thulefoth** » Aug 10, 2005 18:11

DrV,

True, humor is not necessarily the mark of a total cretin. ;)

I agree that FreeBASIC has serious potential, 'way above other BASIC projects. Dramatically so. It could even break out of BASIC-circles and gain a wider OSS-based acceptance, though that would be ratcheting up expectations. First-stage success would seem more likely, starting with FreeBASIC-as-BASIC, then perhaps moving into new areas from there.

V1ctor and the other FreeBASIC principles have put together what I believe is a winning combination of facilities in the product. The program is very attractive.

Aiming it to become a contender with mainstream development platforms, instead of being a 'populist' BASIC, is another thing altogether.

Can populist BASIC put FreeBASIC on a gleaming new dedicated server? Bear in mind, QBasic was not intended to make money, but rather to hurt the competition (Borland). Then, BASIC was used primarily to manipulate the professional community.

The principles in the history of BASIC actually had other purposes for it, than making money. They wanted to make money, in specific other ways. It is not too much of an overstatement, to say that populist BASIC was never treated as the potential market product that it could be.

Ted

PaulSquires · Post by **PaulSquires** » Aug 10, 2005 19:48

It is not too much of an overstatement, to say that populist BASIC was never treated as the potential market product that it could be.

Visual Basic revolutionized programming. Even Bill Gates himself said so. I would venture to guess that there are still more VB programmers in the world than C/C++ and also that a fair amount of $$$$ has been made from it.

mjs · Post by **mjs** » Aug 10, 2005 19:52

I cannot believe this. Almost every microcontroller is programmed with C and there are much more microcontrollers out there than there are desktop-pc's. Even a new car has more than 50 microcontroller. I'm also quite sure that you don't find VB in this area.

Regards,
Mark

PaulSquires · Post by **PaulSquires** » Aug 10, 2005 20:02

more VB programmers...

I meant people not devices.

:-)

mjs · Post by **mjs** » Aug 10, 2005 20:46

I know, but I don't think that these devices are programmed by VB programmers. When there are much more devices programmed with C then it's very likely that there are also more C programmers.

But this is a dumb and annoying discussion and I don't want to start a flame war - so this is my last comment about this topic.

Regards,
Mark

PaulSquires · Post by **PaulSquires** » Aug 10, 2005 21:15

mjs wrote:But this is a dumb and annoying discussion and I don't want to start a flame war - so this is my last comment about this topic.

I agree. My last one as well. I only meant to disagree with the fallace that BASIC is still seen as a backward, genius, language that hasn't gained acceptance in the corporate computing world.

dumbledore · Post by **dumbledore** » Aug 10, 2005 22:08

maybe true, but not everyone only programs in one language. ;) thus it's harder to gauge.

Aerthe · Post by **Aerthe** » Aug 10, 2005 22:48

yeah! take some lameass like me for example! I do a little VB as well as HTML as well!

Shadowwolf · Post by **Shadowwolf** » Aug 11, 2005 0:23

most people that use micro controller for a app are CS or electrical engineers and there not going to jump to a C compiler there going to write there program in assembly not C.

also paulsquires point is still valid the number of micro controllers in the word has nothing to do with the number of programmers. the ratio of VB to C programmer could easy be higher since VB pretty simplist language asian block countrys are churning them out by the dozen for outsourcing work from western block countrys.

also even if the high number of micro controller out there most of them are flashed with premade programs there not all in the hands of geeky programs playing around with them for fun or being modifey for some coperation that needs some pice of hardware to do this or that for so custom applacation most case there going to use a common app for the microcontroller already out there for the job.

Z!re · Post by **Z!re** » Aug 11, 2005 0:50

[Content removed at author's request]

cha0s · Post by **cha0s** » Aug 11, 2005 1:03

Z!re wrote:How about adding a link called: ADMIN
But you can only click it if you're actually an admin

haha, that was funny

Post by **v1ctor** » Aug 11, 2005 5:01

Done.

dumbledore · Post by **dumbledore** » Aug 11, 2005 7:42

technically speaking there is an admin link that you can't click, but it's on the sf project page, not this forum. ;)