for someone considering teaching himself to program? I am more interested in mathematical than graphics programming.
for someone considering teaching himself to program? I am more interested in mathematical than graphics programming.
If you're interested in mathematical programming, I recommend XBasic. It's not "nice" to Windows (was written before Windows existed!), yet it has a RAD (forms write themselves), an IDE (they call it PDE), and apps work fine in both Windows and Linux.
It is a 32-bit compiler that comes very close to PureBasic in speed -- which is the fastest Basic compiler (quite competitive with C++). And there is support for signed and unsigned 8, 16, and 32 bit integers, plus single nnd double precision floats, plus "HUGE" 64 bit integers and -- get this -- single and double precision complex numbers. It also has these fascinating "tree structured" arrays.
Like I say, it's not "nice," eg. the optional Console minimizes instead of closes when you click on the upper-right hand corner, but that doesn't bother old DOS wonks like me. You can write .exe's or DLL's. They require a runtime DLL (compresses to 0.5 megs, so you can fit your app on a floppy), but that doesn't seem to slow it down any.
Almost forgot -- it's free, yet you can charge for apps written in XBasic. The company that commissioned the genius who wrote it simply dropped the ball. Development continues (though more slowly than I'd like) via a very active and helpful user's group.
Start here:
http://www.xbasic.org/
ETF
> for someone considering teaching himself to
> program? I am more interested in
> mathematical than graphics programming.
> for someone considering teaching himself to
> program? I am more interested in
> mathematical than graphics programming.
Eiffel was designed from the ground up to be simple, elegant and powerful. It is a static-typed, object-oriented language and features multiple inheritance, genericity and design by contract. Eiffel will teach you good programming practices that will aid you even if you move on to other languages.
Eiffel Software offers an Eiffel IDE free for non-commercial use. There's also the GNU Eiffel compiler: SmartEiffel, which I highly recommend (although it doesn't come with an IDE).
Do you know anything about True Basic or Real Basic? Is the QBasic, which used to come with DOS, still available? How do these differ from Visual Basic?
> Do you know anything about True Basic or
> Real Basic? Is the QBasic, which used to
> come with DOS, still available? How do these
> differ from Visual Basic?
Don't know about True Basic and Real Basic. I think there are several adaptations of the Basic language, such as Power Basic, which I don't know about either except that it exists. I believe these "Basic" adaptations are more or less derived from the original BASIC language, which I believe stands for Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code and was developed in the 1960s. I've used old Basic, Q-Basic and Visual Basic 6. Q-Basic is the predecessor of Visual Basic and has a lot more to offer than old Basic. Visual Basic 6 is the predecessor the Visual Basic.Net and has a lot more to offer than Q-Basic.
The version of Q-Basic that came with DOS was incapable of generating an executable. A while back I was able to download a version that could, but I can't remember from what site. If you Google for Q-Basic, you'll probably find a version you can download.
My first version of Visual Basic 6 came from a textbook for classes I took in VB6. It was the Learning Edition, and also was incapable of generating an executable. As I continued taking courses, I was able to get the Student Edition of Visual Studio 6. The only difference in the Student Edition and the Professional Edition was the price! You just had to be a student to qualify.
One instructor I had once stated that there are more similarities than differences in high level programming languages and I think that's probably true. Learning a Basic derivative first seems like a good choice to me, because it's perhaps more intuitive.
To Magician: Eiffel seems like it may be worth looking into. I never knew it existed. You never know what you will learn as a result of being interested in blackjack.
Anyway, just as each succeeding version of Basic offers more than the previous, there are people with more programming knowledge than I have out there that can offer more than me, so you can take my comments for whatever they are worth.
KC
You can find a fairly complete list, with ratings, here:
http://basic.mindteq.com/
I don't think his first language is English, but I found his ratings generally accurate, though I think he gives short shrift to XBasic cause it's "not nice." I don't think that should count very much compared to the end product for the user. Eg. he gives high marks to Phoenix Object "Envelop" and I was disappointed to find, after downloading, that it's interpreted and runs 77 times slower on one simple test, compared to PureBasic and XBasic.
QBasic is interpreted also, but there was a QBx 7.0 that was compiled. But a) it's a DOS 16-bit compiler, so much slower on todays 32-bit machines. b) It's no longer sold by Microsoft and any d/ls you find on the internet are slightly illegal.
If you know somebody with Win98, you can get QBasic off the installation disks. It's in a folder called "Old DOS" or some such. Perfectly legal, as long as your friend doesn't keep a copy.
Comparing VBasic to QBasic. Very similar at the code level. Most QB programs are easily converted to VB. But VB has a RAD, which lets you program "forms" for Windows, just by dragging and dropping elements like buttons, dialogue boxes, etc. And of course VB has a compiler -- you can create .exe programs for distribution.
VB 6 also gives you vast ability to create many different types of applications and interact with different Windows standards. OLE, ODBC, ADO, SQL (just spouting the alphabet). If any of that is important to you, get the professional version, or maybe get RealBasic.
There's a new version of FreeBasic now, that compiles (almost all) QB code to 32-bit code. But it's very new, beta, and little or no support for forms. Ie. Not yet ready for Windows. (A little console box comes up.)
If I were you I would be looking at the free choices. You can try it out, see if you like it, and any experience you get will carry over to the pricier options. Going the other direction doesn't work, because all the latest "inheritance" and "pollywhoknowswhatism" (which is supposed to encourage good programming practice) gets in the way. These are there to deliberately get in between the programmer and the operating system, which is why VB.NET has not taken off. (VB 6 is still far more popular.)
Five years ago, there was no such a thing as a good, free BASIC compiler, now there are several. I spent about a month looking at them, plus VB and PB, and the best, IMHO, is XBasic.
ETF
> Do you know anything about True Basic or
> Real Basic? Is the QBasic, which used to
> come with DOS, still available? How do these
> differ from Visual Basic?
... for XBasic. I was going to give you this one the other day, but the site was down.
http://www.maxreason.com/software/xbasic/xbasic.html
> To Magician: Eiffel seems like it may be
> worth looking into. I never knew it existed.
> You never know what you will learn as a
> result of being interested in blackjack.
Well, just one book actually. Object-Oriented Software Construction, 2e by Bertrand Meyer teaches Eiffel by explaining not just the syntax and semantics but also the principles behind every feature of the language, including why the feature is important and why it is implemented in this particular way. (Can any other programming language be justified to that extent?)
Every software developer can learn something from this book, even if they never use Eiffel. A lot of us cut our teeth on BASIC back in the day. Today's beginner will learn a lot more from reading this book than from years of hacking in {Q|X|Power|Visual}BASIC.
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