PBWin 9 Review

[John Spikowski]

Forum Members,

I have a thread going on the www.AllBasic.Info looking for PowerBASIC users that have upgraded and willing to give a review (http://www.allbasic.info/forum/index.php?topic=244.0) of the new compiler.

I'm sure there are other PowerBASIC users other then myself that are on the fence asking themselves if the upgrade is for them or not.

PowerBASIC has taken the Basic beyond an enhance QB compiler to another level. Is this long awaited or not what your interested in?

If you upgraded and would be willing to post a review, you may be the first to do so before anyone else has a say.  :o


John

[José Roca]

The help file is available online: http://www.powerbasic.com/support/help/pbwin/index.htm

Click "What's New?" and see if there is something that pleases you or not.

For low-level COM programmers like me, it is a must.

[John Spikowski]

I can't wait to start a new beta cycle to help in the implementation of what is still missing, like native unicode support.


José,

If you wouldn't mind, I would like to conduct an interview with you about the 9/5 release as a representative of the All Basic site. You have been the father of COM as it relates to PowerBASIC and I can't think of anyone else I trust more then you for an honest view of the PowerBASIC landscape.

Q. On a scale of 1 to 10, where would you put the current 9/5 release as being COM feature complete?

Q. Native OCX container support is something I thought was a COM foundation piece and I was surprised it's not part of the release. Is ATL the direction PowerBASIC is going in to bring this feature to the language?

Q. Based on posts I have read on the PowerBASIC forum, it seems that users are having some trouble working outside the PowerBASIC environment with the current COM feature set. Is this a user understanding issue or is there missing functionality in this area?

Q. Based on what I know so far, PB8 code compiles fine on PB9 without modification. Is there anything a PowerBASIC programmer needs to know moving their version 8 code forward?

Q. Can DDT be used with PowerObjects to produce a visual COM environment without having to deal with a OCX container?

Q. With the current COM implementation, is PBCC a better choice to learn PowerBASIC COM?

Thanks for your time and answers to the above questions if you decide to participate in this interview. A verbatim copy of these questions and your answers will be posted on the ALL Basic site under the PBWin 9 Review thread.


John

[ErosOlmi]

John,

I do not think it is worth to answer to your questions here opening a subtle discussion on the mentioned points. We would go very quickly into a "hole" where we could stay for too much wasting time.

José gave the link to new features. PB forum is open for reading to everyone. Everyone can make its decision if new version is ok for him/her or not.

Ciao
Eros