hap2u
New Member
Posts: 17
|
Post by hap2u on Mar 2, 2020 16:27:12 GMT -5
Interesting discussion! Many years ago I got my only A+ for a Business paper called Buckminister Fuller, Synergy, and Business! The point of this is, your parts are less than the whole for this platform right now, but it has the potential to become greater than the whole.
1) This is why I would advocate for related names for you different products: Just BASIC Student Edition, Just BASIC Web, Just BASIC Personal, Just BASIC Professional (LB Pro and Run) because it will be noticed by individuals such as myself who are not among the 150 IQ programming nerds. If you like complicated or modern check out Python. 2) Something which makes your Basic unique Command wise is a good selling point, I remember creating Mid,Left,Right and replace functions in my Timex/Sinclair in order to try out some Quick Basic stuff in a book I purchased, the Timex stopped working and I gave it away, but I still have that book. Creating sliced strings would not prevent one from using the old style thanks to the way your Basic Functions work. You get rid of 4 commands and have a new way of using code for customers to work on. 3) Run Basic would be great for an app which creates a Project Board only, not the rest of the stuff on GitHub. You could allow anyone to make cards for the first column, while requiring a pass word to change and edit cards in the other columns. 4) There is a way to get a pane for showing Subs, Functions, Labels in Liberty 4? I took a quick look and can not find it. It could work somewhat like Yahoo's advertising pane, a click can close it or open it. Clicks will rotate between displaying the 3 different types of Routines, of course clicking on a Label or function will cause the top of the main pane to go to the link in question.
Don't get the wrong idea I am very happy with Liberty Basic, but worry that it requires some better presentation to stay in the game!
|
|
|
Post by Carl Gundel on Mar 2, 2020 16:41:32 GMT -5
Perhaps I'm just thick in the skull, but isn't GitHub a place where people promote their open source projects? Rosetta Code is great for mixing with programmers that use other languages, and you all have been doing a fantastic job with it! GitHub would be fine for showcasing code like we do with Rosetta, but it wouldn't have near the sense of community with the other languages nor the relative ease of contributing. Now, if the source code for Just BASIC was made available, that would be an ideal project for GitHub. It does have a wiki built-in as well, which can be handy.
:@)
The only way to make Just BASIC an open source project would be to backport it to a 16-bit version of the Smalltalk it is written in because only that version of Smalltalk/V is free to use. Of course you could also port it to Squeak or Pharo Smalltalk but that you would have to rewrite so much stuff to make it work. Still, it's an idea.
|
|
|
Post by sarossell on Mar 2, 2020 16:53:09 GMT -5
The only way to make Just BASIC an open source project would be to backport it to a 16-bit version of the Smalltalk it is written in because only that version of Smalltalk/V is free to use. Of course you could also port it to Squeak or Pharo Smalltalk but that you would have to rewrite so much stuff to make it work. Very interesting. I wonder if the type of programmers that would be interested in the source for Just BASIC would necessarily care that it was 16-bit? Can you even run that on anything modern like a MacBook Pro or Windows 10?
|
|
|
Post by Carl Gundel on Mar 2, 2020 17:08:12 GMT -5
The only way to make Just BASIC an open source project would be to backport it to a 16-bit version of the Smalltalk it is written in because only that version of Smalltalk/V is free to use. Of course you could also port it to Squeak or Pharo Smalltalk but that you would have to rewrite so much stuff to make it work. Very interesting. I wonder if the type of programmers that would be interested in the source for Just BASIC would necessarily care that it was 16-bit? Can you even run that on anything modern like a MacBook Pro or Windows 10? I'm pretty sure there is a way to install a 16-bit subsystem into Windows 10, but most people would not probably want to do that. The best way to proceed then would be to grab one of the free 32 or 64-bit Smalltalks and port the code. Like I said, you would need to rewrite the GUI stuff at least. EDIT: 64-bit makes the most sense. Windows still seems to run 32-bit happily, but the latest Mac OS only runs 64-bit software, and many Linux distros only run 64-bit by default, although you can install 32-bit support on a lot of them.
|
|
|
Post by Carl Gundel on Mar 2, 2020 17:13:17 GMT -5
Interesting discussion! Many years ago I got my only A+ for a Business paper called Buckminister Fuller, Synergy, and Business! The point of this is, your parts are less than the whole for this platform right now, but it has the potential to become greater than the whole. 1) This is why I would advocate for related names for you different products: Just BASIC Student Edition, Just BASIC Web, Just BASIC Personal, Just BASIC Professional (LB Pro and Run) because it will be noticed by individuals such as myself who are not among the 150 IQ programming nerds. If you like complicated or modern check out Python. Python enjoys the popularity of the herd right now. Hard to overcome. It's important not to start adding in arbitrary syntax. I'm not about to add a bunch of features from Sinclair BASIC. Any other suggestions? Maybe there is something good to harvest from an old 8-bit BASIC? It's true that Run BASIC could be useful here. Press Alt+G I'm not against making changes. One thing that we used to have going for us was that people used to spread the word a lot more, or at least that's the way it seemed. Once in a while I ask people to tell their friends and coworkers, but I have no idea if that has any effect at all.
|
|
|
Post by sarossell on Mar 3, 2020 1:41:13 GMT -5
One thing that we used to have going for us was that people used to spread the word a lot more, or at least that's the way it seemed. Once in a while I ask people to tell their friends and coworkers, but I have no idea if that has any effect at all. I firmly believe that in order to stay current and marketable you have to ride that fine line between continuous functionality and trending herd mentality. Python is the lingua franca of the current generation simply because BASIC dropped the ball. Look at the history of BASIC at that time. It was a perfect storm of stupid. Processors went 32-bit and everything between Quick BASIC to GW BASIC to Gfa BASIC to...all just fell off to the wayside. By 1991, the world had sloughed off Atari, Amiga and OS/2. And to fill the gap, all in the same year came Visual Basic, Python and Java.
Now, we look back and realize that Java was just a good concept implemented in the worst way possible, Microsoft shot themselves in the foot with .NET, and Python was all that was left. It was free and easy to learn and it had a cool name. "Hmmm...Python or Basic. Basic is so old-school. My grandpa programmed in Basic. And which Basic? Look at them all. They're all so...boring. And which do I trust? I'm going with Python. It's new. It's cool. And there's only one version to worry about."
Remember, Visual Basic was actually the de facto office application programming language choice for well over a decade. It became so ubiquitous that it's now part of Microsoft Office as an afterthought.
I think people would flock to a shiny new BASIC that looked solid, well supported and worked on everything, especially the Raspberry Pi -- Let me repeat that. ESPECIALLY the Raspberry Pi. There are over 25 mllionion of them out there right now! And their demographic is everything from 5 to 85 years old.
Python's not a bad language. It's just the second best option when BASIC isn't around to defend its title. All it would take is for someone to show up with a shiny web site, an impressively congruous suite of applications, solid support, and a willingness to simply say, "Hey folks, BASIC is back! And it's ready to get things done." Show people that they don't need all that extra Python crap to make portable apps on ALL their devices and they'll come around. People will start talking again, "Dude, why are you typing all that crap in Python? Check this out..."
:@)
|
|
|
Post by meerkat on Mar 3, 2020 8:53:44 GMT -5
Maybe it could be possible to change the Run Basic Server back end to run Liberty Basic or a verb that fires a listing programs for a timeout period. There would be a unified language that could also do web.
It has advantages; -You get all of the HTML stuff. -Trying to get out of the sand box to do real time client side stuff is like learning to break dance. -Loading LB exe's to the client when needed would replace almost all javascript. -Hopefully it would be able to remember web session variables. -Only one LB language to support
I'm getting a lot of this to work with LB and Apache CGI. I'm trying to get this down to Functions. My stuff is kinda messy now, but it would be nice to have some standard LB interface..
|
|
|
Post by sarossell on Mar 3, 2020 10:16:56 GMT -5
Sounds intriguing, meerkat.
I recently had to write up a proposal for web-based language options and I was surprised at the huge gap in the market between dedicated solutions like Run BASIC and Spider BASIC and the ad-hoc back-end Apache CGI kludge solutions. Xojo allows single source code to be compiled as a web app either dedicated OR CGI. It made my teeth itch, but I ended up having to recommend it for the project since they already had most of the app written in Xojo to begin with and management didn't know it could do that. I wonder how cool would it be if LB and Run could communicate more cohesively.
:@)
|
|
|
Post by Carl Gundel on Mar 3, 2020 15:35:23 GMT -5
Frankly, and I genuinely BEG forgiveness for this next statement, I would not be disappointed to see the three products branded more cohesively. While the PROGRAM Liberty BASIC has my heart eternally, the NAME doesn't exactly thrill me. And I can't defend that statement. I'm not thrilled with "Just" or "Run" either. How about Jolt BASIC?
|
|
hap2u
New Member
Posts: 17
|
Post by hap2u on Mar 3, 2020 17:16:52 GMT -5
Sarosell: An 'optional navigation pulldown or sidebar listing the branch labels, subroutines and functions' has been in LB4 for years.
r.m. Thanks! When I first clicked it nothing happened as the Editor was empty, so I did not realize what it was for. I've been using the Just Basic editor, time to switch over and uninstall JB.
|
|
hap2u
New Member
Posts: 17
|
Post by hap2u on Mar 3, 2020 17:26:41 GMT -5
On GitHub what I found interesting was the Project Board with its cards and columns! I am new to Liberty so perhaps I am wrong to think a project board would work on 'Run Basic'. Well I have disturbed things enough, time to actually start using the language rather than going on about how everything is set up. Thank you for not getting too upset with my various questions and speculations. I do have a project on GitHub and wish to transport it to Liberty Basic by first creating a translator program in Just Basic. So far so good.
|
|
|
Post by pandawdy on Mar 3, 2020 17:30:42 GMT -5
Rename the pro version of LB to Gundel Ball Z
|
|
|
Post by Carl Gundel on Mar 3, 2020 17:33:58 GMT -5
Rename the pro version of LB to Gundel Ball Z That's better than Jolt BASIC? BASIC needs to be in the name, I think. If it isn't it will be nearly impossible to register a domain for it.
|
|
|
Post by meerkat on Mar 3, 2020 18:26:54 GMT -5
A long time ago I wrote a forum in RB that included downloads of photos and text such as .bas programs. Would be nice to show that this Basic also produced it's own forum. It's basically 2 programs, One to setup and maintain, the other for the users.. Maybe someone should pick it up and publish it.. I think it still works.. www.kneware.com:8808/seaside/go/runbasicpersonal?app=blog
|
|
|
Post by Carl Gundel on Mar 3, 2020 18:33:55 GMT -5
A long time ago I wrote a forum in RB that included downloads of photos and text such as .bas programs. Would be nice to show that this Basic also produced it's own forum. It's basically 2 programs, One to setup and maintain, the other for the users.. Maybe someone should pick it up and publish it.. I think it still works.. www.kneware.com:8808/seaside/go/runbasicpersonal?app=blogThe link takes me to a login screen. Maybe the blog app isn't published? It's a forum right, not a blog?
|
|