ntech
New Member
Posts: 49
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Post by ntech on Jan 18, 2020 17:15:45 GMT -5
Thank you all for your information. My prior, now dead, PC had if I recall an i5 with 1TB HDD storage and 12GB of RAM, disk access would have taken a while. The intended application asked about here was to create a physical model of hobby solid rocket motor combustion. The goal finite cell mesh had cubic cells in an array of 1024x1024x10240 cells. That's 10GB per mesh instance, total. Plan was to look at three slices of the mesh at a time, which would be 1024x1024x3, 3MB of data dealt with at a time, each center of the three slices being operated on looking at the 26 cells bordering it , reading 1MB and writing 1MB with each pass. Each slice would be its own file. Each A and B set of 10240 (20GB total) slices would alternate being the input and intermediate output. Final output would be GIFs showing grain regression against time, as well as propellant mass burnt per timeslice and a graph of thrust and with dry mass entered, integrated acceleration for a velocity and flight path. The current PC to implement this is i7, 1TB SSD, and 64GB of RAM. If the current LB implementation can deal with 256MB, I believe it will get it done. Cool. May I ask what happened to your dead PC?
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Post by TaliaPerkins on Jan 18, 2020 19:33:48 GMT -5
I have no idea why it died. Got suddenly to where it would only attempt to boot 1 time out of twenty and never would come all the way up. It was RAID and the RAID controller went tits up as well, no one could get anything sensible off the HDDs. Oh well. Teaches me to be casual with back ups. Then I had a divorce, my Dad had some hospitalization, Mom went all but completely blind, work got busy, you know, things happened. Gave myself a new PC for Christmas, about to get LB Pro as well. I'm about back to where I was 15 months ago, programming-wise.
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Post by logical1 on Mar 6, 2020 11:44:21 GMT -5
Hi folks,
Am new to the forum and have only been using LB for several months. Was just reading the posts here and it mentions over 300 commands and constants. Was wondering if the list presented on LB website includes them all or is there a more up to date list?
Thanks for help,
L
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Post by Rod on Mar 6, 2020 11:51:35 GMT -5
Click on the ? help icon. The help file opens, all commands are listed in alpha order at the foot of the help file. Also you have to dig deeper to get to the graphics command set and sprite command set.
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Post by logical1 on Mar 6, 2020 18:09:35 GMT -5
Click on the ? help icon. The help file opens, all commands are listed in alpha order at the foot of the help file. Also you have to dig deeper to get to the graphics command set and sprite command set. Ok. That is useful to know. Thanks for your help Rod. L
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Post by logical1 on Mar 6, 2020 18:26:29 GMT -5
Thank you all for your information. My prior, now dead, PC had if I recall an i5 with 1TB HDD storage and 12GB of RAM, disk access would have taken a while. The intended application asked about here was to create a physical model of hobby solid rocket motor combustion. The goal finite cell mesh had cubic cells in an array of 1024x1024x10240 cells. That's 10GB per mesh instance, total. Plan was to look at three slices of the mesh at a time, which would be 1024x1024x3, 3MB of data dealt with at a time, each center of the three slices being operated on looking at the 26 cells bordering it , reading 1MB and writing 1MB with each pass. Each slice would be its own file. Each A and B set of 10240 (20GB total) slices would alternate being the input and intermediate output. Final output would be GIFs showing grain regression against time, as well as propellant mass burnt per timeslice and a graph of thrust and with dry mass entered, integrated acceleration for a velocity and flight path. The current PC to implement this is i7, 1TB SSD, and 64GB of RAM. If the current LB implementation can deal with 256MB, I believe it will get it done. Can I ask - is there any particular reason that you are using cubic finite elements in your model? What is the propellant arrangement? L
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jordi
Full Member
A simple solution is the smarter one.
Posts: 106
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Post by jordi on Mar 11, 2020 8:35:21 GMT -5
I tried several basic dialecs before choosing Liberty Basic:
- Visual Basic: it's as visual as any other. It's not basic. It's some kind of C# with words that have some resemblance to basic keywords. Better use C# as it has lots of documentation and examples and is not so contradictory. At least you know in which language you are programming.
- RapidQ: it's alive and can use FreeQ as IDE. But the fact is that although it's a great basic language, the ide doesn't work well. It has lots of bugs. At the end, it is hard to make anything that is not a console application. The original ide of RapidQ doesn't work at all in Windows 10.
- FreeBasic: not as alien as Visual Basic, but I don't feel it's basic. It is in a middle way between Visual Basic and a real basic. It feels strange. The IDE looks good, but the language is not so good.
- Qbasic64: works on 32 and 64 bits. It's QBasic. It can have a modern look and windows using Inform, but it is a bit the monster of Frankenstein because they are different parts. It looks pretty solid, and you can use the source of many qbasic code, and examples. Anyway Liberty Basic is quite compatible. Comparing QBasic and Liberty Basic, you can do the same things in Liberty Basic more easily. So at the end I preferred Liberty Basic because of that.
These are the free alternatives. The paying ones: Gambas, Xojo, and others, again doesn't feel like basic but more like C# or Java. I already know those and programmed in them, but I wanted a fast natural language, and that is Basic.
Liberty Basic IDE is good, it has some problem like the undo, but you can use Notepad++ or any other editor, which is very nice. Then the Freeform editor works well, and is very easy.
I also preferred to pay for something that is actively done by an individual. I know this is quite against the beliefs of may people. But I prefer the developments of an individual or a company. I don't like opensource for a production environment. The reason is simple although people tend to get angry when I tell: if it's free, it's bad. If it's developed by a crowd, it's inconsistent. If no one gets benefit for doing it, the idea is soon abandoned or perverted.
The same happens in my main scope, 3d, with Blender. Blender is a bad modeler. It takes an eternity to learn (lack of self-criticism because it's the work of people who work for free), it's buggy (too many changes because everybody wants to be a hero) and is not consistent between updates (too many developers wanting to reinvent the wheel). Zbrush and Silo are much more solid, consistent, and good for production. The same happens with programming languages and IDEs.
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Post by sarossell on Mar 11, 2020 11:30:08 GMT -5
I tried several basic dialecs before choosing Liberty Basic... Wow. Concise, accurate, and well-informed. I agree with everything you said.
Sadly, in the BASIC market, while Liberty BASIC shines well when compared to the competition, outside of the BASIC arena, it doesn't fair so well. Python has stuck its fangs into the kids while C++/C# keeps the adults distracted. Then there's the web contingent with HTML5/CSS/JavaScript/PHP. And of course the Java zombies. Finally, Apple snatched up the scraps with Swift.
It breaks my heart to see BASIC maligned so badly. And I blame Microsoft. Their history with BASIC is criminally irresponsible; BASICA, GW-BASIC, QuickBASIC, QBasic, PDS, Visual Basic, Visual Basic .NET, Small BASIC... What the hell, Bill?! For over a decade, between 1986 and 1997, Visual Basic didn't even have a compiler! A German version of BASIC called Gfa BASIC was often used to compile DLLs for VB applications because Microsoft couldn't be bothered! Then after Microsoft finally included a compiler with version 5, one version later marked the end before they crapped all over it and jumped to .NET.
What gets me is that if BASIC is such crap, why are there over 50 attempts right now trying to get it right? You don't see that with ANY other programming language! And why is it NONE of them can figure out the simple formula to compete in the market? The question is simple: What do the top ten programming languages all have in common?
Cross-platform compatibility + Animal books. Yep!
That's Windows, Mac, Linux, ARM, (and perhaps even iOS and Android) coupled with "animal" books from O'Reilly, preferably sold on Amazon.
Cross-platform compatibility - It's Java's friggin' mantra! Unfortunately, Java is big pain in the butt!
SDL has opened a lot of doors. Hell, just look at how BBC BASIC has been powered up for anything that plugs in. It's slow as snot, but...whatever.
Electron has blazed a path with HTML5/CSS/JavaScript. Yawn.
So, show me ANY of the 50-plus versions of BASIC that even get close to that kind of cross-platform functionality.
Xojo doesn't count! It's not BASIC! Sure, it can build Windows, Mac, Linux, ARM and even Web apps. Too bad, it's an OOP RAD that only smells like BASIC had once rubbed up against it a few years back when it was actually called REALBasic.
BBC BASIC doesn't count! Sure, it's BASIC, but it's not being actively developed. It's just being propped up by SDL by one man with a weird mission.
Pure BASIC is close. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, but not ARM. But it is BASIC! Well, sort of. They added 1,500 commands! Dafu...? And it smells more like C. But it also has a cousin called Spider BASIC that builds web apps. In the end though, they're both...well, THICK. Oh, and French. Not that French is bad. It's just not English, and it shows.
So who's the closest? You ready for this?
Friggin' QB64! A reimagining of QuickBASIC, a 35 year old DOS language. It works on damn near everything, and it can even attempt to look pretty, but it's got MS-DOS all over it. It's fugly!
And that's it! Four possible contenders, and they're all wrong. There's only one other version of BASIC that's even got a chance, Liberty BASIC 5. No pressure, Carl!
:@)
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jordi
Full Member
A simple solution is the smarter one.
Posts: 106
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Post by jordi on Mar 11, 2020 11:47:58 GMT -5
The other negative point of QB64 is that compilation is slow, very slow, even for short programs. A long one takes an eternity. Even for compiling without execution you have to wait a while.
About what you said, I think that actually people like python because it is the closest to basic. It's closer to human speech, it's more high level. If they didn't associate basic with old or beginner, I am sure many people would use basic. Basic is perfect for anything that doesn't require a top speed like games or 3d (and depends on which 3d use are we talking about).
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Post by sarossell on Mar 11, 2020 11:54:53 GMT -5
The other negative point of QB64 is that compilation is slow, very slow, even for short programs. A long one takes an eternity. Even for compiling without execution you have to wait a while. About what you said, I think that actually people like python because it is the closest to basic. It's closer to human speech, it's more high level. If they didn't associate basic with old or beginner, I am sure many people would use basic. Basic is perfect for anything that doesn't require a top speed like games or 3d (and depends on which 3d use are we talking about). Again, I'm in full agreement. :@)
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Post by svajoklis on Apr 27, 2020 13:53:19 GMT -5
> The other negative point of QB64 is that compilation is slow, very slow, even for short programs.
Was trying out QB64 for a while now, and the compilation doesn't feel very slow, maybe my definition of "slow" is different. It's not instant as in Liberty, but I only had it perform "slowly" once - on first compile. It seems it does something more than just compile the file the first time you compile something, other builds, even for new files are quite fast.
Should probably try out more BASIC flavors, each one seems to have a different focus.
> [PureBasic is] French. Not that French is bad. It's just not English, and it shows.
What do you mean? I have tried out PureBasic more than Liberty, and I love the extensive library of functions on it. It even crams a 3D engine there, not to mention all the util libraries. Also the inline assembler, even though I haven't used it, looks "sick af" as the kids would say. Really squeezing out those cycles. If I recall correctly even the GUI programming wasn't half bad either, kind of similar to Liberty.
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Post by sarossell on Apr 27, 2020 22:59:55 GMT -5
I only had it perform "slowly" once - on first compile. Should probably try out more BASIC flavors, each one seems to have a different focus. [PureBasic is] French. Not that French is bad. It's just not English, and it shows. What do you mean? The first compile with QB64 will be slower. It indexes a bunch of stuff. Subsequent compiles are much quicker.
There aren't a lot of decent options for other flavors of BASIC out there, and of those, none of them achieve the same level of functionality as Liberty BASIC with maybe, on a point by point basis, QB64.
PureBasic itself is in English, but support and the developer are primarily French. There's a slight language disparity at times. Nothing too serious.
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