I must be one of those "half brain" guy

[Patrice Terrier]

The problem is when?

We now have an answer, Tom Hanlin just wrote on the PB forum:

Not today, we have other projects under development that must clear first.

Those who do not need 64-bit yet, be happy, you will have some new "cool toy" first ...

Personnaly, i only need "tool".  

[Patrice Terrier]

There is still much to do in the 32-bit field, such native unicode support.

"Native Unicode support" this is what i would call "tool" not "toy"

And why the heck, should we always be left behind.

...

[José Roca]

@Jose: Do you think it will be possible for a smaller Company like PB.inc to develope at the same time two product lines for 32 and 64 bit?

I don't know.

I'd prefer if they just leave PB32 as it is, swll it like that, and develope new versions only for 64 bit  with all needed unicode support.

I don't. Maybe in a couple of years, but not now.

And why the heck, should we always be left behind.

Because we are a minority. Granted, you don't need DDT and graphic statements, but the majority of PBer's will be lost without them and won't buy the compiler. When PB will release a 64 bit compiler it should be a full fledged one.

[Mike Stefanik]

From what I've seen people post and talk about on the forums, for years they've written code with the assumption that pointers and integers (DWORDs in particular) are interchangable. That's inherently non-portable, and I'm not sure what the folks at PowerBasic can really to do mitigate that in any kind of transparent way. I'm sure the transition will be less painful for those who are largely using DDT, but for those who largely (or exclusively) use the Windows API, there'll be some work ahead to make sure they're calling things correctly.

I agree that it really wouldn't make sense for them to release a half-baked 64-bit compiler just to meet the needs of a handful of programmers. When they do provide one, people are going to rightfully expect it to have all of the functionality of the 32-bit version. Hopefully they'll also provide some kind of migration tool that can help programmers pinpoint areas in their source code where there's potential issues (e.g.: assigning the value from a function that returns a 64-bit value to a 32-bit variable, etc.)

[Patrice Terrier]

José,

I am well aware that we are a minority  

But when i write "why the heck, should we always be left behind", i also mean "left behind C programmers" as they are living in the 21th century since 10 years...

I have moved to GDIPLUS 8 years ago, then DWM/GPU with VISTA, and now Direct2D with Seven, thats a mandatory for the niche market i have selected.

In today's programming the standards are not anymore those of the 20th, and modern compilers must comply with the new fundamentals.

When you are a small company, "comply", also means to take the good decisions and avoid to spend your limited resources with the past, and leave everything that is not the heart of your job to third party addon.

For example you have done a tremendous work with your "include files", you have written the excellent "TypeLib Browser", there is SED or UltraEdit, there are 3rd party form designers, etc.

However there is only one good basic compiler: PowerBASIC, and this is why i am so upset!

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[Eros Olmi]

@Jose: Do you think it will be possible for a smaller Company like PB.inc to develope at the same time two product lines for 32 and 64 bit?

I don't know.

PureBasic does it:

• Windows 32bit and 64bit
• Linux 32bit and 64bit
• MacOSX both Intel and PowerPC

As far as I know PureBasic is a very small company.

Maybe it all depends on the development environment used to develop the compiler. Can it be?

[Edwin Knoppert]

While they *are* making really work about their compiler imo Purebasic introduces new bugs as well.
I mean i often read about things which 'break', imo that is a serious no-no, in fact i consider that the most important factor for reliability.
They do fix it but that's not really the point, that's just good but it seems to happen to often.
There's is another topic going on here about bare bones compiler.
To me, PureBasic and PowerBASIC both make the same mistake, especially PureBasic introduces a large amount of new features, there is no 'bare bones' to find here.
PowrBASIC's DDT is also a thing we better shouldn't have imo.
It distracts the soul purpose, being SDK..
If PowerBASIC simply added a default windowclass most stuff would be ready to go, simply the register windowclass parts was the annoying part.
CreateWindow() vs Dialog Create and an ordinary windowproc.
Hmm, maybe a wrapper for a default messagepump to help us a little would also nice but that's it!

I understand, it wouldn't be possible to get money from a compiler which has no need for updating, for us SDK fokes it would be the nicest thing to have.
Simple and only with very basic commands like Str$() and Maybe a Parse$(), don't know.
All the other nonsense can be done via api, once provided via an include.., everybody happy.

[Eros Olmi]

I can be with you but the point was:
"Do you think it will be possible for a smaller Company to develope at the same time two product lines for 32 and 64 bit?
The answer is yes if it wants. If I'm not wrong, Purebasic is developed nothing more than few persons (maybe one, Fred )

And the other consideration is: what compiler is used to compile my compiler? Can this influence the time to market?
I mean, if my compiler is 100% developed in ASM, I'm pretty sure my time to market cannot be that fast and I have to consider twice or even more before making such a huge move.

[Brice Manuel]

We now have an answer, Tom Hanlin just wrote on the PB forum:

Thank you for the heads up.  One can only hope that the long awaited Linux version is one of those "projects" that Tom is referring to.

[Theo Gottwald]

And why the heck, should we always be left behind.

You can answer this yourself, Patrice. The answer is that they managed to clone the sheep named "Dolly" but it didn't work with humans  until now.  Even then they can not start programming right out of the box.

[Theo Gottwald]

PureBasic does it:

Windows 32bit and 64bit
Linux 32bit and 64bit
MacOSX both Intel and PowerPC
As far as I know PureBasic is a very small company.

Maybe it all depends on the development environment used to develop the compiler. Can it be?

If i need to do something in x64, then Purebasic 64 is actually what i take.

Its very moderate in price and after all works.
And i would say its now much better then it was Years before.

But then ... no GOSUB .. see my articles on this topic here:

http://www.jose.it-berater.org/smfforum/index.php?board=381.0

Purebasic - for me - is only a time-sollution until i get the thing from Bob.

The Purebasic developer Fred, has many people to work with him and for him.
This leads to a high innovation rate.
My impression is, that they develope the thing a bit in direction of a "Game-Basic".
3D Engine and such stuff. I personally don't need this.

The Compiler has a 100% different structure compared with Powerbasic.
This enables it to be ported to LINUX, MAC-OS etc. in minutes.
Its quite something else.

As a result there is no real GOSUB, its just another structure inside.
I am sure there are people out there who will swear on Purebasic,
but once used to Powerbasic its a too big step into another philosophy for me.

[Brice Manuel]

My impression is, that they develope the thing a bit in direction of a "Game-Basic".
3D Engine and such stuff. I personally don't need this.

The gaming side is mediocre at best.  The 3D engine is pretty much useless.  Ogre is a decent engine, but PureBasic's Ogre implementation lacks a lot of functionality.  This is something that has supposedly been going to be addressed for several years, but like the GUI designer, it is something that never actually gets done.  Although I always get flamed for saying this, PureBasic is extremely buggy and they never concentrate on only fixing bugs.  Bug fixes always coincide with new features, which introduce new problems (and often break existing features which previously worked fine) and it turns into a never ending cycle.

I still maintain some PureB projects that use version 3.94 which was very stable (also the EXEs were much smaller back then)

Anybody wanting an OS X supporting BASIC, should take a look at Objective-Basic.

[Theo Gottwald]

System Requirements
Objective-Basic requires Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6 or higher).

I don't have it at hand  

Reminds me that i just like Powerbasic because it works. With windows.
There are just some of these moments when i think "This time it must be the compiler - it can't be My code!"
But then after all it was my code.

PowerBasic is just BUGFREE. Whatever things i do with it.

[James C. Fuller]

System Requirements
Objective-Basic requires Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6 or higher).

I don't have it at hand  

Reminds me that i just like Powerbasic because it works. With windows.
There are just some of these moments when i think "This time it must be the compiler - it can't be My code!"
But then after all it was my code.

PowerBasic is just BUGFREE. Whatever things i do with it.

I agree Theo. While I do code with a number of basic languages in the Open Source community I would NEVER use any of them for a paying contract endeavor.

James

[Patrice Terrier]

I think we all agree on this, and it is the reason why i am using it in my commercial addons.  

Nonobstant, it should not sleep on its laurel  

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