How does Pure-BASIC compare?

[Trevor]

I've just been looking at BASIC dialects on Wikipedia and came across Pure-BASIC. After reading its description I realized it sounded quite similar to EBASIC, except for the $100 price tag. How do the two compare in features, speed, etc.?

[Ionic Wind Support Team]

We don't generally allow these types of threads.   It only leads to flame wars.  Which is why the word filter was designed.

Just try out languages for yourself, you can't get a feeling for them until you actually write some code with them.   Personally I hate it, mostly because of its archaic and inane syntax that relegates from the 1970's, that and the wild-west manner in which they allow their support forums to be run.  I prefer languages with more modern syntaxes, and communities that discuss programming.

Paul Turley
Ionic Wind Software

[Barney]

Being a dinosaur from the 70's I don't mind the archaic syntax but if you are planning to do any real-time 2D/3D graphics, EBasic is definitely better choice. PB still does not have any real 3D support. There's some rather old wrapper for OGRE built in, but it simply can't compare to the EBasic's offering. And when one remembers EBasic is free, I'd say choice is pretty easy.

Barney

[Trevor]

That's fair enough Paul, I probably shouldn't of 'undermined' your filter  . I downloaded the trial version but really couldn't be bothered learning the language. I did notice that variables were defined quite differently; MyInt.i for example, where the i represents integer. The syntax seems far from traditional BASIC and it doesn't support every traditional BASIC keyword as it claims to. I don't think I'll be switching to it but I was just curious whether it held its ground against EBASIC.
Hopefully this thread won't require extuingishing .

[Ionic Wind Support Team]

Karno,
No extinguishing needed .   You also have to consider the bias of each languages forum.  If you were to ask over there they would tell you that PB is a better choice and that I am unstable with questionable parentage.  Over here we'll be biased towards our languages.

They'll probably bring up the point that PB makes smaller executables.  Fair enough and for simple programs it probably does, but they don't compare the work to output ratio.  In other words, with all things being equal,  how much work would you have to put into a program to produce the same output using different languages. 

Emergence has more "meat" in the background to make it easier to write larger projects.  I am currently working as contract programmer with a company that hired me to use Emergence BASIC for the project.  Which consists of 15 different 'modules' now, close to 200K lines of code, managed by a web based CVS, uses multithreading and tcpip commications between different servers.  I wouldn't even attempt it in any other language.  By trade I am a C/C++ programmer and actually enjoy assembly language.  Emergence was the better choice for this particular project.

Ease of use comes with some overhead.  Keep that in mind when languages use the size of their executables as the main selling point.  We are not talking about vast differences either.  In the C language I can write a program that opens a single window draws "hello world" in the middle of that window, making a 15,000 byte (15K)  executable.  Emergence doing the same thing might take 40,000 bytes (40K), don't know exactly since it has been a while since I looked.  But it would take me more work to produce the same output in C.  You have to take care of all the API details manually in C, write the message pump, register the window class, assign default class properties to the window, etc.

When the project gets bigger the differences shrink.  When you compare a larger program and C takes 280K to do the job and Emergence 240K then what was the point of that comparison?  For the end user of your program it makes no difference whatsoever.  The cost per megabyte of storage has dropped like a rock in recent decades:

http://www.swivel.com/data_sets/show/1002626

My wifes current computer has a 340GB hard drive, and without monitor the entire PC costs $299 US. 

Even with that being the case I still am very careful to ensure the compiler makes efficient executables while continuing to allow it to be easy to use with a rich feature set.  No on likes bloated software, not even me.  So it is a balancing act. 

Paul.

[barry]

I think discussions comparing compilers is pretty healthy if it stays factual.  It often doesn't and I suspect that's what you want to avoid.

Reading comparisons of the various compilers is useful to potential buyers and also to those who just like to know what other features are there.  And it lets you know something about how people here feel about the relative importance of various features.

The trick is to keep it sane and that's not always easy to do.

Barry

[DominiqueB]

Hi Paul, happy birthday 

Just a litle question about your choice for EmergenceBasic instead of Aurora, what things made you took this one for your big project ?

Thank's

Dominique

[Ionic Wind Support Team]

?

Not sure I understand your question.

The company that contracted me required me to use Emergence BASIC for the project, simple as that.  Their programmer had already started it, coding in Emergence, long before they contact me.

Paul.

[DominiqueB]

ok,
so it's not about things that could be done with one and not with another . . .

I was just currious about the choice's justifications.

Thank's

Dominique

[Ionic Wind Support Team]

Aurora didn't even exist when they started the project.  Originally the other programmer was using IBasic Pro.

The choice wasn't mine in other words.  However it has helped the community.  All of the recent updates to Emergence were directly related to the project and items that we've been using for a while now.

And of course there is the fact that they pay me to use Emergence

Paul.