Any more alterntive 64bits compiler to native codes?

[Chris Chancellor]

Hello all

i have look thru' the list of 64bits compilers and found that some are already dead

are there anymore alternative 64bits compiler that are not listed here?

C++ is too tough for me, so i appreciate any help

[Theo Gottwald]

Did you take a look on the new JK-IDE from Jürgen Kühlwein with its integrated 64´bit Freebasic?

[Chris Chancellor]

Thanxx a lot Theo

do you have a hyperlink for this JK IDE?  please provide this link

heard that Freebasic is no longer being developed?

[Charles Pegge]

Hi Chris,

https://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=26541

https://jk-ide.jimdo.com/

I see FreeBasic is still being maintained. The source was last updated in June. I would say it's not dead, it's mature

https://github.com/freebasic/fbc

[Chris Chancellor]

Thanxx a lot Charles

[Pierre Bellisle]

I would say it's not dead...

On the other hand, I would not say "kicking and alive" with the lost of dkl... Currently inactive

[Pierre Bellisle]

JK-IDE (A free IDE for PowerBASIC & FreeBASIC)
PlanetSquires
Paul Squires's WinFBE - code editor - visual designer - WinFBX
José Roca's WinFBX - Windows Framework for FreeBASIC

[Chris Chancellor]

Thanxx a lot Pierre

my boss has spent the last 20 years programming in TB and PB and now being subjected to customer's pressure to
produce 64bits apps.  so it doesn't matter whether FB died or not,  we will have to produce 64bits

PB is dead 32bits and won't see any progress for the next 5 years. that is we won't see 64bits PB compiler during these
next 5 years.  it is like wishing for snow to fall on the Sun's surface.

so  in the interim,  compilers like FB , O2 , C++ and C# will save our programs as  they already have proven 64bits compiler

[Chris Chancellor]

what is this Jose's  WinFBX ?   looks to me it is like a group of wrapper functions with winapi ?

i would need some examples on how to use WinFBX and where can i get them?

[Pierre Bellisle]

Yep, here is the forum thread header.

WinFBX - Windows Framework for FreeBASIC
Awesome Windows Framework for FreeBASIC.
Hundreds of functions and classes for anything Windows programming related.
This is a must have programming toolkit.

It's José made, so it is high quality, and also an enormous piece of work.
If José or Paul is around and feel like it, they may give you more infos on this work and where to find examples.

As I see it, depending on your need of course, FB is without a doubt a really good choice.
Note that it is a more complex and precise universe than the one given by PB, so some time to be comfortable will probably be needed.

[Chris Chancellor]

thanxx a lot Pierre for your info

all i need now is to convert some PB programs to FB 64bits
especially when its Winapi includes are provided by Jose 's  WinFBX

in PB, we are using a lot of Jose's Winapi includes so it is only natural that we are migrating to Jose's WinFBX

i wonder how stable is FB 64bits,  any ideas?

[Pierre Bellisle]

From what I seen, it's rocksolid.

[José Roca]

Examples and templates are available if you install the WinFBE editor.

They are also available separately in my GitHub repository:
https://github.com/JoseRoca/WinFBX

On-line help for the WinFBX framework:
https://github.com/JoseRoca/WinFBX/tree/master/docs

The WinFBX framework provides almost all the PowerBasic functionality missing in FreeBasic and much more. Everything compiles in both 32 and 64 bit without any changes and everything is unicode aware.

Perhaps the most important class is CWSTR, that implements support for dynamic unicode strings and works transparently with the FreeBasic string functions and operadors, as well as with the Windows API and other C libraries.

Instead of implementing "A" (ansi) and "W" (unicode) functions, I have taken advantage of casting and automatic conversions. Therefore, although all the wrappers are unicode aware, you can use STRINGs, ZSTRINGs, WSTRINGs, CWSTRs, CBSTRs, CVARs and string literals transparently. Like with the Windows API, using unicode with them will be slightly faster, since no conversions are needed.

Probably the thing that more annoys PowerBasic users new to FreeBasic is the strict type checking, that, like with C++, compels the use of the appropriate data type (or alias) and frequent type casting. It annoyed me for a while, but I have got accostumed. None of the PowerBasic SDK programmers that are using FreeBasic haved had big problems. DDT programmers will have to learn SDK programming. Don't expect a PowerBasic to FreeBasic converter.

The lack of a lead developer means that no new features are being added for the moment, but some FBer's are still maintaining the compiler fixing bugs and improving the documentation. Fixing bugs is more important to me that adding multiple inheritance or a LLVM backend.

> I wonder how stable is FB 64bits,  any ideas?

I have used FB 64 bit extensively without any problem. In fact, I use 64 bit more often than 32 bit, since my main motivation to use FB was to experiment with 64 bit programming.

[Chris Chancellor]

Thanxx a lot everyone, this WinFBX just blew my mind

[José Roca]

The first link is working. I have modified the 2nd link.