Hello all,

I'm not very familiar with this board, but Thomasz kindly asked me to add a note about PureBasic so I would like to say thanks to him.

As you probably guessed it, PureBasic (PB in short) is a BASIC variant which uses FASM as assembler on Windows and Linux (x86). Here is a quick list of the main features of PureBasic :

- Very small and fast executables (no DLL, no bloat etc, simple exec start at 2,5kb on Windows), thanks to FASM to allow several lowlevel optimisations (about branching, etc..) and of course its speed, it can assemble very huge files very quickly which is a must have for us.

- Cross plateform (mostly). PB actually runs on Windows, Linux, AmigaOS classic and MacOS X (this version is being finialized and use PPC asm code generation). That's means than a source code coded 100% with PB commands can be compiled on any supported plateform. Of course, each version of PB uses the native command of the host OS, for example on Linux it use GTK for window/control management while on Windows it uses the Win32 API and on MacOS X it uses Carbon. The same is appliable to game commands (DirectX on Windows, SDL on Linux and OpenGL on MacOS X). All is of course compiled to native code.

- Simple, easy to use and learn, powerful commandset (800+ commands, in many domains from applications to games)

- API commands integration, which means than you can freely mix PB commands with native OS commands (most of PB functions actually returns OS handles to manipulate PB objects with API commands easily).

- Commented ASM output in FASM format on request, so it's possible to examine and tweak the PureBasic generated code to optimize it and reassemble it with your changes.

- Inline ASM in both form: raw fasm commands (not touched by the compiler at all) and managed asm which allow to use regular BASIC variables, labels etc. as ASM operands.

Ok, I will stop the flood now , more infos are available here: http://www.purebasic.com

Thank you for reading,

Fred.

Sounds interesting, even if BASIC isn't my cup of tea.

The description sounds good, the screenshots look interesting, and there's no way code generation can be worse than PowerBASIC

Do you support linking with static libraries?

BASIC is OK, but assembly and BASIC are on two opposite sides. Plus, who would want to pay for it?!

THEWizardGenius, there's a lot of people who have paid for PowerBASIC, which is a mediocre product with lousy code generation...

Well, you can paid for a product when it gives something back. In this case, it's not just a basic compiler, but a featured langage with more than 800 high level commands available for AmigaOS (all commands wrotes in assembly), Windows (critical libs written in asm), Linux (libs written mostly in C for portibility reason), and MacOS X (in C as well as PPC won't be supported by Apple starting from the next year). The commands allow you to create easily a complex application, game (2D or 3D) and anything else. You can access the ASM because we like to optimize some critical part directly inside the basic code. BASIC doesn't have a good reputation mainly because of first versions in the 80's which were intepreted, but nowaday it can match any other programming langage as it gets compiled (with FASM, you guessed it .

PB is VERY fast.For me is the next best thing after FPC.

Looks good, but I'm student and don't have money to buy things for hobby projects.
If it was freeware I would use it.
But I wouldn't buy anything since I already know ASM, C/C++, VB.NET (Express is free) and lots of other languages.

If you don't like PureBasic (which I haven't tried, but it IS free for AmigaOS), then try FreeBASIC. Granted, it uses GNU as (aka, GAS), but it does allow inline assembly too. They are still working on the OOP aspect (everything supposedly is in place except classes???), so it's only at 0.17 beta (but still VERY robust). It supports many libraries (e.g., zlib) and has some good examples and FBhelp. Too bad I'm too lazy to download/waste time on the CVS versions.

http://www.freebasic.net

FPC sounds like an amazing compiler (downloaded it even though I don't know Pascal, heh), BUT it supposedly produces very large .EXEs, and it is somewhat buggy (e.g., DOS port, which has no maintainer, AFAIK). Still, better than nothing. I think it supports inline assembly too, and can output to MASM, NASM, or TASM syntax. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong on this.)

http://www.freepascal.org

P.S. I do agree that PureBasic wouldn't be best for a hobbyist like myself, but if you know what you want, and you know how to get it, it could definitely be worth it (free upgrades).

Very useful for me







Right. Official FPC project policy: "EXE size does NOT matter"



Right

Usage of FASM by commercial PuB probably is perfectly legal from
the FASM BSD license, but bad It should be at least free for personal
use Also, when I tested last time it crashed immediately Finally, it
would be useful for me only if it (and all the cool graph stuff it generates)
had a DOS version or at least the Win32 versions ran on HX-DOS Extender also

Naah ... PowerBASIC has a builtin function called bloat, and that's very cool

i haven't paid for powerbasic but i have full versions of PBWIN, PBCC and PBFORMS with latest patches, it's paradox?

ps. imho, powerbasic doesn't cost this money (199$)

wow cool ....
I only have PBWIN
Maybe you don't mind uploading it somewhere ?

Ahem, I think you should be discussing piracy somewhere else.

You don't want PowerBASIC anyway, it's a piece of shit :]

Hi f0dder,

> You don't want PowerBASIC anyway, it's a piece of shit :]

you quite obvjously don't know PB's very powerful string engine and it's superior speed due to memory preallocation .

http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/basic.shtml

EDIT: Lots of good, free stuff found here.

grin. I've seen it's code generation, that's really enough to avoid it like the plague. Depending on your needs, of course - if you don't mind BASIC brainrot and inflexibility, it might be okay. But I still like to think there's better (free) alternatives.

powerbasic generates very ugly code... but it works

So does Visual Basic - your point is?

nop, it's faster to write something in visual basic but i don't use it, because i dislike it's p-code, VM and it's not so easy to control vb-program in debugger

Just like there's Lazarus that compile Delphi code.
Is there any free Visual Basic compiler?