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(Poll) Why use QBASIC?

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 7:15 pm
by historian
I didn't know QuickBASIC (and its mutant, QBASIC) was still around.
________
HONDA CROSSROAD SPECIFICATIONS

Posted: Sat Jun 16, 2007 9:44 pm
by sid6.7
i see a flame war in the brewing. i'm moving this over
to general topics so real questions can be asked/answered
on how to use Qbasic without distraction....

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 12:36 pm
by Erik
I actually still use it for nostalgia and b/c it's quick and easy to throw something together... :D

Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 2:14 pm
by Nodtveidt
Where's the option for "I don't use it anymore"?

Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2007 1:05 pm
by {Nathan}
Nodtveidt wrote:Where's the option for "I don't use it anymore"?
=

It? "You must mean FreeBASIC."

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 9:47 pm
by Nodtveidt
{Nathan} wrote:
Nodtveidt wrote:Where's the option for "I don't use it anymore"?
=

It? "You must mean FreeBASIC."
Incorrect. You don't win an internet!

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 8:51 am
by roy
Nathan is correct, there are many people that have tried Freebasic and have given up in despair. freebasic.net can not even stand criticism, when a poll was conducted to find out whether people wanted more democracy in order to stop chaos deleting and locking threads, the response to the vote against the admin was to close the subforum.

Posted: Thu Aug 02, 2007 11:33 am
by Imortis
Don't drag that here. There is no need to revive a dead thread for that kind of post.

Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 10:29 am
by roy
I did hope that someone else would reply but as there does not seem to be enough interest in FB I will just add this.
Galleon,Ildurest,CG etc. are trying to bring QB into this century but the FB fanatics are trying to write a completely new language in competition with VB and .net. Give us a break , what chance do you think you have. Power Basic has to be paid for but is worth the investment if you are serious about Basic.

Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 2:01 pm
by Nodtveidt
Roy, shut the fork up before I sent one hundred plumbers with tack hammers to your house to rearrange your ass.

Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 3:28 pm
by roy
Yes, that is the level of response you would expect from the "bottom" half of FB posters.

Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:06 pm
by Stoves
What kind of changes to FB are you trying to avoid? I'm very new to FB, and so far I like the new capabilities. Even though there's a lot of tedious changes I've had to make to several QB programs to make them run in FB, I've been fairly pleased with the backwards-compatibility so far. Are there a number of QB commands that are going to be abandoned entirely? I guess I'm not up to speed on the evolution of FB.

Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 4:29 pm
by roy
Let me know what you think in 6 months time. For a start , why should you have to make tedious changes to your programs.
The main reason I wind them up is because they are always knocking QBasic , as per historians post at the start of this thread but it is only fun on my part.

Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:10 pm
by Stoves
Yeah, it would definitely be nice to just copy and paste from QB to FB and be able to immediately start running the program. If it used to be that way, and FB code has been changed over time so that FB is no-longer that backwards compatible, then I take your point. However, I was never under the impression that FB was ever 100% backwards compatible with QB, so I guess I never expected it to be.

As far as FB programmers knocking QB, I grant that from a language perspective, QB has a number of limits that make it difficult to accomplish certain tasks. However, from a programmer perspective, I don't see how anyone could argue that programming in FB requires a lower-level (in the sense of lower being closer to machine language) understanding of computer systems and programming in general than QB. That's one of the things I love about QBasic. It takes way more creativity and in-depth understanding to program complex games, 3d demos, utilities, etc. in QBasic than in FreeBasic. In other words, I believe that, in general, experienced QB programmers are naturally far superior to experienced FB programmers.

I'm excited about the potential for creating more complex programs with ease in FB, but I'll always come back to QBasic to challenge my understanding, gain more in-depth knowledge of how a given program runs on a machine, and often more satisfaction with the end result.

Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 5:54 pm
by Nodtveidt
Roy, I am glad you have decided to replace me as the "community troublemaker". You play the role so much better than I ever did.

Posted: Mon Aug 06, 2007 6:12 pm
by cha0s
Ok, if you'd like to play then at least follow your rules. Between now and 6 months ago, what major changes were made to break user code? How many of those decision's justifications did you disagree with? Obviously such answers will flow off your tongue.

Don't think me getting criticized was why we shut down the forum. That's just the manifestation the ugly beast took in its dying days. We had a troll problem and we solved it... fast and hard. Is this the spillover onto Pete's site? :P

P.S. This is what I expect from the people posting about how bad FB.net is http://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9104

These actions are unacceptable.

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 11:00 am
by roy
The reference to six months meant the time it would take Stoves to get fed up with it.
I packed up FB after two months but that was a long time ago.
Now I will hand back to Nodtveidt as the troublemaker because I have made my point and am getting fed up with this stupid argument.

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 1:17 pm
by Stoves
roy wrote:The reference to six months meant the time it would take Stoves to get fed up with it.
I packed up FB after two months but that was a long time ago.
Now I will hand back to Nodtveidt as the troublemaker because I have made my point and am getting fed up with this stupid argument.
I guess I'm confused as to what about FB caused you to become fed up with it. Like we noted earlier, it's not 100% compatible with QB (maybe not even 80-90%), but if it never was intended to be completely compatible, but rather similar enough that someone familiar with QB could start programming in FB almost immediately, I don't see how that's a problem.

I've liked FB so far, because there hasn't been a many brand new things I had to know to start coding, and there's a ton of new powerful features that let me do a lot of new things with ease.

I'm sure I'm ignorant of most of the issues, but I'm just curious what about FB was making you fed up with it and what you think will make me fed up with it?

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 3:50 pm
by Mentat
I actually started with something called FirstBASIC, which I thought was a QB. It's pretty close. By the way, I' just signed up todoay. Anybody have helpful hints,tips,ideas,etc for a newbie? Well, I know bit about QB.

Posted: Tue Aug 07, 2007 4:05 pm
by Stoves
1. Read all the issues of QBExpress. There's a ton of sweet tutorials and links to interesting projects.

2. Check out the tutorials section for many other helpful stuff.

3. Post on the forums often.

4. Never pet a burning dog.