PB GUI/IDE cesspool

[John Spikowski]

Anyway, just my 2c... you should ignore me... I'm the one who thinks Tyrone should be paying Paul a portion of each $150 license sold since he used Firefly to create a new Firefly. : )

I think one of the most entertaining topics in the BASIC tools arena is the PowerBASIC 3rd party IDE/GUI designer battle. It's like a bunch of old crows fighting over a dead road kill. If Chris's non-stop EZGUI propaganda doesn't keep you ROFLing, we have a new genius entering the game with a fork of Paul's FireFly. Too funny!

Hint: When the stench of broken promises fills the air, it's time to close the casket and say good-bye.

News Flash!

http://files.allbasic.info/ScriptBasic/joselaststand.png

With PB refusing to respond to support calls, Jose giving up on his include files and locking down his forum to member viewing only, I feel the end is near.

@Jose - Maybe not such a good idea after after all. :) Crawl out of your PB shell and life might seem a bit brighter than where you are now.

[José Roca]

Just a test. I'm looking to see if there is a way to restrict access just to you.

Sorry, Eros. It's your turn to stand John's bullshit, until you get tired of him, if you are not tired already.

[John Spikowski]

No more karma. You're making progress grasshopper. ;)

[ReneMiner]

Damned - I though this would be a thread containing something about a GUI/IDE ( see title & forum section) that can be "borrowed" from PB - obviously I was wrong... now I'm disappointed :( so please moderate this thread to forum section "Embarassing" and rename it "Dis & Insult"

Edit: Needed to long to find the right words- post above in the meantime changed content...

[John Spikowski]

PowerBASIC needs to stand on it's own merit. It doesn't need to take a talented group of guys down with it. Bob had a good run and made a good living doing what he enjoy most. He had his 15 minutes of fame in the DOS days but could never react fast enough and change old ways to grab market share. As I said many times before, PB will live on just as QB will but not a main stream language as the author had hoped for.

[Petr Schreiber]

John,

we get you don't like PB, we get you want to tell everyone how to do his job. Repeating something over and over does not make it truth, it makes you look obsessed.

Are you ban collector? You are getting close to earn another one...


Petr

[John Spikowski]

You can't ban everyone!

Ya know Petr, I believe you're the type of person that would grab someone by the sleeve rather than let them walk in front of an oncoming bus. That's what make us different from the animals that surround us.

I have never let anyone push me around or tell me what to do. Maintaining that standard doesn't come easy.

I'll tone it down as you requested.

[José Roca]

Get used to it. Even in the OxygenBasic forum, hosted by John, some are tired of him:



it's a pity that so few people doesn't realize what "treasures" this whole oxygen website included and what power is behind oxygen basic in general.

the "trouble maker" john (jrs) should have think about in cooperation with charles why this website has only so few people they are active. perhaps another website without this unlikely admin could run better and more serious. that's my personal opinion and I stay with that sentence.




sometimes it's hard john if somebody shows you a mirror for yourself. you are the king of blaming other people and attacked they in a lot of unfairly way in the last years in all basic foren where you've been. and that bad behaviour reached this forum too for some times as you have made some troubles here again and that's I didn't like at all. And I don't accept it. I prefer a serious and fair behaviour to each user he/she's a programming fan. or say excuse me. that's included character. that's a reason for stay absent this forum in my eyes. and for me it could be better to have a friendly "moderator" he's programming with "oxygen basic" and not with script basic or only gives silly things as comments or feeling like a project manager (for what?)..

perhaps I am wrong, but I like to have another forum with another kind of friendly behaviouir and help and tipps for programming with oxygen.

[John Spikowski]

We stopped burning witches years ago. Charles lets O2 speak for itself and doesn't over moderate his forum like some of the other clueless control freaks managing forums. I'm no longer a member of your forum or a fan. You have your hands full saving PB.

[John Spikowski]

Eros,

You might want to give Jim (PowerBASIC) a heads-up about the error being generated by the forum. (last line on page) It's been like this for some time and I'm surprised no one has noticed. (they must be on vacation :confused: )



Error in my_thread_global_end(): 1 threads didn't exit PHP Warning: PHP Startup: Unable to load dynamic library 'C:\PHP\ext\php_openssl.dll' - The specified module could not be found. in Unknown on line 0

[Chris Boss]

Despite what John suggests, the PowerBasic GUI/IDE choices are a benefit to PowerBasic and to PB programmers in general. Why ?

First, PowerBasic is quite unique in that one can code using a variety of different styles. PowerBasic promotes its own DDT command set which has been quite successful. PBForms targets those who prefer DDT and it provides an important choice for PB users.

Next are the SDK style designers which emulate the Visual Basic IDE experience. These are very important because they target a specific group of PB users. Many of them came from a Visual Basic background. Most of them prefer compiling to a single EXE with no dependencies. Also this group also often want support for OCX controls, which this group supports. The two key third party tools in this area are Phoenix and FireFly. Phoenix is more sophisticated than FireFly in many respects, but FireFly is far more popular , likely because it is very well supported, is a very solidproduct (it just has to work right from the start) and is priced just right. For those interested in SDK style coding, I usually recommend FireFly.

There are some new players in the third party IDE market and I personally welcome them all. Tyrones new IDE, while a bit shaky in the start, may have some real potential because he designed his IDE from a totally different perspective. His idea is to also emulate the VB runtime too, which provides better porting capabilities from Visual Basic, if he succeeds. The idea is sound and if he can make it work and get the stability required it will serve an important purpose.

Edwins PwrDev was actually quite good and it is sad he gave up on marketing it. It is not easy being a third party developer for PowerBasic. The market is small compared to say a market like Visual Studio users.

There are likely a few others which I have missed, but you get the picture.

Now as far as my EZGUI is concerned, unlike other most third party IDE/GUI/GUI_Engine developers for PB, this is all I do. I don't work a day job and then build tools for PB at night. So my marketing efforts may be a bit more obvious than others. My development tools though have a long history with PowerBasic. Version 1.0 came on the market a good twelve years ago or so and currently my product is in its fifth generation (5.0). Also unlike the other tools, my product is not an IDE for PowerBasic. It is a GUI framework which comes with its own Designer/Code Generator. It serves an important market of professional PowerBasic developers who have important commercial applications being used even by large corporations (see my blog for some examples: http://cwsof.com/blog/?p=661 ), as well as independent developers all over the world.

Of all the IDE/GUI's for PowerBasic, PowerBasics own PBForms is the most popular. In the SDK area, FireFly is likely the most popular and for good reason. The rest tend to target nitch markets, but they are none the less important. They all serve a purpose and they make many PB programmers more productive.

[John Spikowski]

Hi Chris,

If you are counting on PB to feed you going forward, I suggest you take your due diligence business model to the bank and ask for a loan. Don't be surprised if your turned down.



QB and it's derivatives are past their useful life cycle in business and that flavor of BASIC has been a standard in the hobby realm for years.
You would be hard pressed to convince a banker that PB/EZGUI has a future. You milked it for all it's worth so find something else to do. If not, I'm sure your could squeeze a few more pennies out of PBDOS to supplement your dead market.
It takes more than being a good programmer with the gift of gab to be successful. You need customers. Be honest, how many copies of EZGUI (non-fire-sale) have you sold last month?
If your determined to go down with the ship, PB should hire you to do their marketing even if on a contract basis. (you have the passion and the brains but unfortunately no foundation to work with)

[John Spikowski]

@Petr - Your job as a moderator is to keep topics interesting and relevant. It's really starting to bother me that people on this forum feel they have to right to speak for everyone and in moderator cases, censor content. If you every hope to get more than a 1/2 dozen members involved in this forum, you need to lighten up on the N. Korean style of leadership.

[Chris Boss]

John,

So called "fire-sales" are part of business. Economic times are hard, so one must adapt and consider the needs of customers.

Before you doubt the product though, consider where it is being used. EZGUI based products have been used by major corporations or institutions. Check out my blog ( http://cwsof.com/blog/?p=661 )for two examples, Chevron and Clearcom. Clearcom wireless devices and the TDesk software that comes with it (built using EZGUI) are used in many major public events and by many large corporations (e. Disney). I have customers which depend upon my work for their livings.

There is a reason my product is called EZGUI Professional. It is a tool for professionals, but even hobby programmers can use it.

The low priced version I have recently been offering (Classic) was prices so low that even hobby programmers can afford it. There are a number of hobby programmers who have turned their hobby into a business using my tools. Some good examples:

http://www.nostalgiabaseball.com/


http://www.radio3k.com/

There is a certain degree of satisfaction knowing I develop tools which help others make a honest living. It is not simply how much money one makes that matters.

I have to give credit though to PowerBasic and their excellent compilers, because without them my software would not exist.

ThinBasic's development using PowerBasic is also a good example of what can be created using it. As long as the WIN32 API exists, PowerBasic will be a useful tool.

Please do not ruin this great forum ! ThinBasics forums should be a place for programmers to enjoy.

On another note:

To those browsing these forums, I would just like to comment for a moment about ThinBasic. As a professional programmer with years of experience with the Windows API I just have to say that ThinBasic is an amazing piece of software. It has brought honor to the BASIC language. I have been programming in Basic longer than some who may visit here are in age. My first taste of Basic was in 1975 on a teletype terminal connected to a college mainfarme computer. I got my real start in learning programming on the TI-994A computer (Basic) and then the Commodore 64 (Basic and also a real Basic compiler by Abacus). I even wrote my own Basic like compiler for the Commodore 64. I wrote apps for businesses on CPM (using Basic), on the early IBM compatibles (DOS) (using Basic such as QuickBasic 4.1, PDS 7.1) and then on Windows (Visual Basic). I have experimented with so many different Basics, such as CA Realizer, GFABasic, RealBasic, BlitzBasic, IBasic Pro and others. I have downloaded so many different variants of Basic, I stopped counting. For the last ten to twelve years I have been programming using PowerBasic exclusively. I guess BASIC is in my blood. It is my language of choice. The ThinBasic you are using could be considered a "child" of not only Basic, but also of PowerBasic. So to the creator of ThinBasic and all those who write addons for ThinBasic, thank you for choosing BASIC !

[John Spikowski]

Please do not ruin this great forum !

I don't have the ability to think for people. They make choices on their own. Stop watching TV and reading the paper if you can't handle bad news.

[Chris Boss]

Where are the moderators ?

Such behavior on my forums would have been banned immediately.

[Petr Schreiber]

@John

This is like farting in room full of people and telling "you can open the windows if you don't like the smell".
Fart does not hurt anyone, but does not make anybody happy or better as well.

There are some social rules you fail to satisfy for reason unknown. We had a few, very rare cases of users, which didn't fit here because of their attitude. All of them had the decency to simply leave the place and seek their own. Something to think about.


Petr