Summer Days

[kryton9]

Hi Roberto and Eros, with the nice long Summer Days, I know you are wondering what you could work on to pass the time :) Ok, well maybe not, but here is a thought to think about.

1
Roberto, since you are the c/c++, ASM guy it is up to you if interested.

Maybe you can think of a way to take our thinBasic code and compile it down to portable devices, like smart phones and pda's that run on windows mobile OS.
Visual Studio does compile to mobile 5 or 6 depending on the SDK, but how you could take thinBasic code and compile it to that I don't know.

2
This is another idea too. The current thinBasic is like the original, but perhaps you guys could be thinking already about the next product, maybe developed in a language that offers more flexibility in where it can run, like Delphi, or C++ even Pelle C. Here is a name, AnyBasic... the basic that can run anywhere on any device.

Since Microsoft is the big chief and what they say and do really effects everything else... perhaps going with their development environment is the way. Their express versions are free, so all of us who want to develop with you guys can join in. We could use C#, as that is what Microsoft is heading towards and of course later f#, but I think going with C# now would allow for an easy transition when f# becomes the new language. C# is easier to use than c++ and less errors since memory is managed. We have access to everything in the api easily, directx and on and on. Maybe anyBasic can be written to use the c headers and libraries as they exist with no conversion to work in AnyBasic.

With c# we have the cool frameworks available so it will probably be less work to get to a further level in a shorter amount of time and we would be unlimited on which devices we can run on in the future.

Well something for you guys to think about on these nice Long Summer Days.

[RobertoBianchi]

Kryton9

thanks for yours suggestions, sure we'll do our best.

Regards,
Roberto

[ErosOlmi]

Hey Ken, you are a vulcano :D

Well, priority number one and two in summer days are:
1: family
2: have some rest (physical and mental) after a year of hard work
Done that, of course thinBasic! But summer days here have to wait for 1 month and a half.

Back to your suggestions, my impression is that you like thinBasic sintax and how it let make complex programming with simple coding. It is also what we like more and what let convince us more to go on. That said, you suggestions are nice and clever but they require at least 1 year of study and preparation. It doesn't mean we will not make any move, it just means we will move in parallel way: while continuosly develop thinBasic using Power Basic language, more work will be done using another development environment and language.

Delphi is not definitely a solution. It is good for applications that need complex user interfaces but not for an interpreter. Personally I do not trust Borland. They have changed so many times that I can hardly see what they will be concentrated on in future.

C++ ... well C++ is widely used especially in game industry but language and libraries are not so 100% compatible between each other and many C++ compilers have personalized way to do things.

C# is nice and elegant. Personally I like it a lot but it is .Net dependant and so far even Microsoft have not developed real big applications over .Net framework other that development tools and libraries. They are still C and C++ stuck while they say to all the world to use C# and now thay are also saying to use VB .Net. So we prefer to stay at the window and see at least for 1 or 2 years. I suppose we have to wait till .Net (or whatever will be next name) will be 100% inside any Microsoft operating system in transparent way that is you will not have to worry about what .Net version you have installed.

C, yes, C seems the way for speed, compatibility and portability.
The most important work we will have to do with C is to build our own string handling library. We use OLE32 strings that are not present in other OSs. So we have to rebuild something similar. All other dynamic memory structures we use are build using pointers to memory allocated by thinBasic so it will be quite simple to port from Power Basic to C.

OK, stop for now. I go out for lunch.
Ciao
Eros

[kryton9]

I am very happy to hear you guys are thinking of this stuff !!