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PowerBasic - will it recover or is the Air out?

Started by Theo Gottwald, December 06, 2012, 09:40:33 PM

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Carlo Pagani

I'm sorry, but this is THE time where everyone should be cancelling their leave and showing the metal required. The amount of up and down is not a good reflection, even here in Africa it is frowned on :)

As I said in an earlier post, the time to provide bug fixes to PB 10 will be an indication of future possibilities. For me however, this is a BIG wake up call.

Theo Gottwald

#106
Today I have asked  Jose if he could not Team up with Hutch, Paul Dixon and Dominic etc. and make a PB compatible compiler, that the PB Syntax would survive.

His answer was very short and did not make me much hope for now.

He gave me a hint that he plans to enjoy the coming years and that he does not plan to sit in front of the computer as long as until now.
With the result that only a few people will even recognize the difference between his work and the other stuff out there that is lower quality and less in quantity.

I would like the PB Syntax to survive and get extended, but how can it be done, does anybody have a Plan B?

Eric Pearson

I'm just not getting why everybody is so negative.  We are operating on virtually null data here, and IMO people's fears are getting the better of them. Recruiting people to create a replacement compiler?  Really?

Gentlemen, haven't you ever had the rug pulled out from under you by an unexpected death or sudden event?  Besides this one, I mean.  When you got up one morning and everything was different?  How long did it take you to put things back together?

Bob died on November 6.  Today is December 16.  Unless I'm mistaken, Vivian is in her seventies and has a medical history, as they say.  PowerBASIC is a relatively small company, just a few employees.  Their job is probably just to keep PB on the rails, not keep their online fans posted as their plans evolve.

If was running PB, Inc. right now I would not want to start a communication with the forum regulars until I had all the details in place.  An investor, a new staff member, a plausible game plan, whatever.  Seriously, I would turn off the forums during the hours when I could not monitor them in real time.  Just to keep a lid on comments and fear-based speculation like I see here.  And I'd make sure that my staff could take a break for the holidays, after the death of somebody so close.  The fate of the world is not at stake.

I have to say that I'm disappointed in some of you.

-- Eric

Carlo Pagani

Eric, it's about survival for a few of us who, unlike Patrice, have been riding one horse. It is also about fear of the unknown and hope diminishes for each time the web site is down. I don't believe it is about control of posts. PB is used across many time zones and the forums is a big repository of knowlege which I use daily for that purpose.

Today, more than ever it is about communicating and keeping your customers informed. Yes, the PB community is most loyal, and of course, the employees and Viv have our sympathies and all the more reason to communicate better and alay my fears.

Patrice Terrier

In the case of PowerBASIC, Bob was the "keyman", and when you loose the "keyman" very few company can survive, even those having contracted a special insurance for that typical situation, because money could never replace such an atypique brain.

Trying to imagine that a leading group of talented programmers could take up on Bob's work is an unrealistic expectation.

On the other way, when the member of the PB's permanent staff is not himself an assembly programmer, and when he needs to rely on external resources, sooner or later that would lead to other (ego) problems.

Eric--

I am afraid, i could not see any reasonable forthcoming future for PB.

...
Patrice Terrier
GDImage (advanced graphic addon)
http://www.zapsolution.com

Theo Gottwald

I see the problem that the money "that is in there" may not be intersting to seriouse bussiness people unless the whoile thing could be modernized and attract more then just a handfull of long year fans.
But my impression on that this could happen is not very high.
Like Jose said "I think that they never have liked suggestions about using third party tools."

Therefore i assume that it will go on for a while. But no bussiness that is not earning enough money can last long, unless idealistic people are behind.
Thats what i do not see. So i am checking NOW if somebody ha s a plan B.

The point is that writing a compiler need soiphisticated ASM knowledge, and i do not have that.
Otherwise I'd been starting today. Aside from that COM stuff I'd just do it. If I'd have Hutch or Paul Dixons ASM Knowlegde.
The algorhytms for a compiler-language are not secret bussiness, its normal IT and anybody with enough ASM knowledge can do it.

I have no expectation that any compiler in the future will ever beat Bobs compiler in terms of compilation speed.
Besides that i believe that it was possibly the last compiler that was made in pure ASM.
Hardware is doubling speed every year therefore this would not be not my main concern.

As said, my point here is, that i would like to see PB Syntax to be kept alive and also to see an x64 version of it.
I have Purebasic and  Modula and other  Alternatives, but i like PB ... its so easy.

Having said that ... we are UP again :-). (16-12-12 14:37)

Stan Duraham

Looks like they made some changes and took time off ... might be the right thing to do under the circumstances.

QuoteThe point is that writing a compiler need soiphisticated ASM knowledge...

Not anymore.
You'd probably use LLVM.
You parse your code into IF (intermediate form).
LLVM then spits out binary machine code for; X86, X86-64, PowerPC, PowerPC-64, ARM, Thumb, SPARC, Alpha, CellSPU, MIPS, MSP430, SystemZ, and XCore.
It can also spit out C.

This is used and backed by Apple for Objective-C, it's industrial strength.

LLVM currently supports compiling of C, C++, Objective-C, Fortran, Ada, Haskell, Java bytecode, Python, Ruby, ActionScript, GLSL, D, and Rust, using various front ends.


Chris Holbrook

Stan beat me to it. See http://llvm.org/

So, LLVM back end, maybe a front end from adapting Eros's interpreter?

I'll take one, thanks, Android target of course.

Nothing wrong with thinking big!

Frederick J. Harris

I'm with Eric on this.  Time to wait and see.  For those that wish to be pro-active, learning other languages can't hurt, in any event.

However, I can't help but feel that Bob would have hired folks with backgrounds similiar to his, i.e., knowledge of intel processor architecture, asm skills, maybe some compiler skills.  Put yourself in his shoes for a moment and think.  In hiring, he would probably value those candidates most who had skills similiar to his, with perhaps some additional backgrounds that complemented his skills in some way.  In the past I've seen processor specific questions answered by PowerBASIC staff other than Bob Z. 

Frederick J. Harris

You know, at times I've wondered (I'm sure we all have) of what avail Bob made of other compiler toolchain technologies out there, such as the LLVM just discussed by Stan and Chris.   While I know little to nothing of these issues and am only peripherally interested in them, I have always noted that the PowerBASIC compiler is several orders of magnitude faster than the GCC or Microsoft compilers.   This has led me to suspect that the PowerBASIC compiler design is wholly a creation of Bob's.  I doubt if LLVM was available when Bob was honing his compiler writting skills back in the early 80s. 

Frederick J. Harris

And an examination of the \bin subdirectory of the installation reveals the compiler itself to be an 840 KB executable which doesn't have many other dependencies.  Before PowerBASIC for Windows 7 the whole purchase of a PowerBASIC compiler was received on 1 or 2 3.5" floppies.  And the v6 win compiler was rather advanced - only lacking COM and unicode support.  When one reflects on this it becomes obvious that Bob Zale really meant it with 'smaller - faster'. 

James C. Fuller


Chris Holbrook

PB is "smaller-faster" but also appeals because it is easy -> lower cost of production.

However, it is a dedicated Intel/Windows language compiler and that restricts its appeal these days. 

For this old hack coder** it has been very, very useful, not to mention a lot of fun, but it isn't the only tool in the box.

In retrospect, Bob Zale has kept a plate-spinning act going for an amazingly long time.  I sincerely doubt if a suitable clone will be found and I believe that a very different future awaits for PowerBASIC devotees. Of course, one of Bob's skills was to keep development just abreast of one's sense of exasperation, and in these days of wonder, that will be hard for his successor to follow, as different constituencies in the user base will want to move in different directions, and loyalty cannot always be counted upon.

OTOH a diverse user base means that there will always be some sort of uptake of variants of the product ... but why speculate when you can just sit back and watch the show? Perhaps sparing a thought for those who convinced conservative managements to eschew M$ in favour of PowerBASIC, for their enemies are even now massing at the gates.

Interesting times, etc.


** nowadays one should say "dedicated and vastly experienced IT professional with a passion for his work"

Frederick J. Harris

Of course, Microsoft, being a legal entity rather than a singular person such as Bob Zale, can't die (I guess bankrupt is the operative word there).  However, if one uses their products one can count on having to throw one's code base away every few years for their latest must have programming tool.  Been there and done that.

Chris Holbrook

Quote from: Theo Gottwald on December 16, 2012, 02:36:53 PM
As said, my point here is, that i would like to see PB Syntax to be kept alive and also to see an x64 version of it.
Doesn't Eros Olmi have something very like the PB syntax? Maybe with an open phone line to Eros and a copy of Niklaus Wirth's book on compilers, the Christmas Holidays could be used to good effect?