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Once upon a time... QBasic

Posted: Sun May 22, 2011 3:35 am
by angros47
I was looking some old qb e-zines (my favourite was QBCM), and a thought came in my mind: in year 2000, there was a lot of speculations and previsions about the future of basic. Somebody said qbasic was dying, and somebody proposed solutions.

There was no dosbox, no qb64, no freebasic... there was only hope, and enthusiasm.
There were lots of qbasic libraries, that made qbasic really powerful.
There was the dream to be able to make 3d games in basic.

In 2000, I've found a very good compiler: rapidQ (as intuitive as qbasic, with windows support and some OOP). When it has been abandoned (in 2001), I had a dream: an open source oop basic compiler (but a true compiler, not a pcode) for windows. I started working on UltraBasic (written, and abandoned, by Gabriel Fernandez), until FreeBasic made all my efforts useless. :oops:

Now, I'm looking back: qbasic is not dead... but what happened? There were a lot of dreams and promises... how many of them had become true?

1) Compiler for windows (and linux): QBCC has been abandoned. OBDS by nekrophidius, too. But new compilers come, and now there is not one, but two working solutions: freebasic and QB64. Both 32 bit, both open source. The future of basic is in good hands.

2) OOP in basic: it's available in freebasic, but it's not as easy as in rapidq.

3) 3d in basic: there are many solutions: pure opengl, minib3d, irrlicht....
Maybe too many... which one should be used ;) ..... well, minib3d, I hope, since I worked on it 8)

4) qbasic community; sadly, it was torn apart. Many good members leaved, and remaining ones went in different places (qb64, freebasic, network54)

5) e-zines: :( :( Back2Basic had a short life... the enthusiasm is lower.


What do you think? If you were back in 2000, would you be happy to know the future events of basic?

Posted: Sun May 22, 2011 9:32 am
by burger2227
No, I wouldn't be happy, but I STILL wouldn't want to learn C or the OOPSY VB NET either!

PLUS I can't afford them! QB64 has everything I need ATM, thank you. Anything more would just be overkill!

Ted