A B4PPC user wrote to this to me regarding my suggestion to make B4PPC into a dedicated desktop language:
I'm glad I saw your question/suggestion on the forum; as it is exactly how I feel too. In the past, I've tried to get into programming for Windows applications - I managed to get a copy of Visual Studio 2005 but unless you have a pretty good idea of what to do, you literally don't know where to start.
I am doing a lot of programs with Basic4PPC that I un-ashamedly write for the desktop only - but the very easy use of Basic4PPC lends itself to it. I'm just very worried that support will start to dwindle now as more of the forum users are leaning towards Android.
As I type this I'm downloading the Visual Studio Express 2010 that Erel suggested and will compare a few programs. I fear that libraries that we take for granted from Andrew Graham and Erel will not have any direct equivalents and we'll have to build our own code to do that. I'm thinking of specifics to me, such as Serial ports or TCP/IP network connections.
I just think Erel and Andew are underestimating the extremely simple process for a beginner to get something working; yet it may evolve into a powerfull application.
We may have to say good-bye to B4PPC, but hopefully it has given us the knowledge to at least ask some structured questions in the Visual Express circles...
I answered...
I agree that Erel and Andrew may be underestimating the needs of many who don't find programming so easy to get to grips with. Yes, there is a free version of Visual Studio but I have used Visual Basic intensively in the past and although it is more powerful than B4PPC it is also much more complicated to learn to do what we can do fairly easily with B4PPC.
I believer there are desktop programmers who would be happy to pay for a more dedicated desktop version of B4PPC rather than start all over again with the Express version of Visual Studio. Familiarity with a programming package like B4PPC creates confidence to approach programming projects and that is worth something.
I guess Erel is looking at the commercial side of this situation. Most B4PPC and now B4Android users are probably focussed on device based programs, not programming for desktop only use. His customer base is probably not in the desktop area. Work on a new version of B4PPC ('BASIC4Desktop') would have to be commercially viable and I expect his time is greatly taken up with the new device environments.
When I was using Visual Basic it was VB 6.0 and used activeX controls in place of our 'Libraries'. But they are essentially the same as they both call the Windows API to do things the standard 'Libraries' could not do. You could also buy a third-party control (Library) to do a specific thing if VB didn't have it as one of the many built-in controls. Or you could buy a book on calling the API from your code - I found it very complicated to get API calls to work without problems. (It would be more sensible to use Visual C part of Visual Studio if you wanted to write new Libraries.)
But yes, I agree, maybe Erel is losing sight of the value of programming with a familiar, easy to use product, and I am sure there are lots of programmers who would buy such a user friendly and familiar environment for desktop programming, rather than start all over again with Microsoft Visual Basic part of Visual Studio and a whole library of books you'd inevitably end up purchasing.
So I do believe there would be a market for a more simple BASIC compiler for general use and it would be ideal for new hobby programmers to start off with to get to grips with programming.
Some further thoughts on BASIC as an ab initio programming language...
A simple, easy to understand programming envronment is what is missing from PC Programming. Microsoft Visual Studio Express is a limited version of a very complex, multi-language programming system and I personaly don't think it is suitable for hobby programmers who want quick results without having to read tomes of gibble-gobble to even get started. It is for students who are taking a course or a degree in Computer Science. I learned it because I had to do so for work reasons when I was a computer engineer in the 1990s.
Basic4PPC is Visual Basic as it was intended (when VB was a DOS-based compiler called Quick-BASIC, back in the 1980s). Visual Basic stopped being a B.A.S.I.C. language when it became object-oriented under Windows. It became a nightmare as a Beginner's language because it was taken up across the workplace as a commercial programming language for many non-technical arenas where the C language was not required. This is how we lost our Beginners' programming language. The first letter of the acronym BASIC is "beginner's". The fact that Microsoft calls it: Visual 'Basic' rather than the correct: Visual 'BASIC' shows that they no longer consider it the beginner language it was created for. They have dumped the acronym 'BASIC' and replaced it with the real name 'Basic'. And quite right too, as it is no longer a beginner programming language but a complex high-level language for business use, these days.
BASIC4Windows COULD easily be that missing ideal beginner's language, Erel.
