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Something like VB6 would be okay, but it seems silly to introduce it today. The problem seems to be this inexplicable trend toward unnecessary complexity in modern languages.

I'd suggest PowerBASIC (former Turbo Basic) as an alternative. While it allows for (easy) structured/procedural programming, which makes a nice starting point and is a traditional strength of BASIC as a teaching language, it offers at the same time almost everything you conceptually might want to explore: for example classes, pointers, (inline) assembler etc.

A glance at the compiler manual might give you an impression of its capabilities.

And, yes, I'm a pretty satitisfied PB user since it's early DOS days.

Something like VB6 would be okay, but it seems silly to introduce it today. The problem seems to be this inexplicable trend toward unnecessary complexity in modern languages.

I'd suggest PowerBASIC (former Turbo Basic) as an alternative. While it allows for (easy) structured/procedural programming, which makes a nice starting point and is a traditional strength of BASIC as a teaching language, it offers at the same time almost everything you conceptually might want to explore: for example classes, pointers, (inline) assembler etc.

A glance at the compiler manual might give you an impression of its capabilities.

And, yes, I'm a pretty satitisfied PB user since it's early DOS days.

I'm one of them. I still actively use it today.

Same here. And everything that VB6 can't do or "needs a 'lil help with", I'm adding with PowerBASIC (PB). My programs are typical inhouse programs: Retrieve data from A, convert/calculate/transform it, store it back to A or pass it over to B.

If my time would permit (programming is only part of my job's duty), I'd replace every VB application with a complete PB counterpart. Unfortunately that's still not the case, but I'm working on it. I just wish PB would hire someone to write a decent IDE. The compiler is a masterpiece (and doesn't need to fear the comparison with any other language), the IDE ... not so.

Last I heard, PowerBASIC was still going strong.

I think Ruby fits that bill better than BASIC. Starts out without needing the baggage, but when you're ready for structured programming and objects, it's all right there.

Well, just because the BASIC dialects you know don't do that, doesn't mean they don't exist. Have a look at PowerBASIC, for example. It lets you either do it the good old "structured" way or the OOP way.

It also has tons of other, nifty features, like inline assembler, pointers and all the stuff you'd expect from a full blown compiler.

And you avoid learning GOTO. I don't care how easy it makes initial learning, it's building bad habits that you're going to spend years killing.

Again, PowerBASIC gives you the choice. Either you go with the traditional BASIC error handling (On Error Goto) or you can use exception handling (Try/Catch/Finally).

In my opinion a key point which makes BASIC great as a beginner's language is readability. It's more or less plain english and stays away from all that curley bracket/semicolon stuff. An If/End If-block in BASIC is way easier to spot and understand for a beginner than hunting down a closing "}" (or missing ";").

And no, I'm not affiliated with PB in any way, I'm just a happy and satisfied user who often smiles when typical BASIC cliches come up.

An interesting thing. I recall in 1987 (or earlier?) that Borland had a basic compiler, turbo-basic.

And it's still alive and kickin'. Hop over to PowerBASIC and read up on the history of Turbo Basic/PowerBASIC.

An interesting thing. I recall in 1987 (or earlier?) that Borland had a basic compiler, turbo-basic.

And it's still alive and kickin'. Hop over to PowerBASIC and read up on the history of Turbo Basic/PowerBASIC.

Not Soooo Fast... http://www.powerbasic.com/

I used to use the Blitz Basic Compiler for the Commodore 64 but I couldn't find a link on that one....

Wait... this -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitz_BASIC is close...

GSG

Thre's a product called Gambas it's not very mature yet and has some odd quirks (like the object members not being available in the constructor or destructor), but it's getting there and it's FOSS, so it may not be to hard to make it understand VB6.

Powerbasic used to make an exelent product, maybe a bit too good for the VB crowed.

Failing that there must be enough VB programmers out there to to a re-write? in VB?

Powerbasic DOS compiler apparently works just fine under DOSEMU.

I use it in conjunction with .NET and ANSI C. Check out their company history for some background then take a look at the delicious capabilities of their Windows and Console compilers.

They also have a kick-ass DOS Compiler that has put dinner on my table for years. As we know, many people are still using DOS and DOS-mode apps every day.

When looking at PowerBASIC you have to get rid of any preconcieved notions of BASIC or how it has been implimented in the past. PowerBASIC is a dream to use, has a huge community, and compilers smaller and faster than most ANSI C programs I've seen. Also, check out their partial client list - you'll be in good company.

No, I do not work for them. I am a loyal customer and a geek that loves cool stuff. PB delivers.

I use it in conjunction with .NET and ANSI C. Check out their company history for some background then take a look at the delicious capabilities of their Windows and Console compilers.

They also have a kick-ass DOS Compiler that has put dinner on my table for years. As we know, many people are still using DOS and DOS-mode apps every day.

When looking at PowerBASIC you have to get rid of any preconcieved notions of BASIC or how it has been implimented in the past. PowerBASIC is a dream to use, has a huge community, and compilers smaller and faster than most ANSI C programs I've seen. Also, check out their partial client list - you'll be in good company.

No, I do not work for them. I am a loyal customer and a geek that loves cool stuff. PB delivers.

I use it in conjunction with .NET and ANSI C. Check out their company history for some background then take a look at the delicious capabilities of their Windows and Console compilers.

They also have a kick-ass DOS Compiler that has put dinner on my table for years. As we know, many people are still using DOS and DOS-mode apps every day.

When looking at PowerBASIC you have to get rid of any preconcieved notions of BASIC or how it has been implimented in the past. PowerBASIC is a dream to use, has a huge community, and compilers smaller and faster than most ANSI C programs I've seen. Also, check out their partial client list - you'll be in good company.

No, I do not work for them. I am a loyal customer and a geek that loves cool stuff. PB delivers.

I use it in conjunction with .NET and ANSI C. Check out their company history for some background then take a look at the delicious capabilities of their Windows and Console compilers.

They also have a kick-ass DOS Compiler that has put dinner on my table for years. As we know, many people are still using DOS and DOS-mode apps every day.

When looking at PowerBASIC you have to get rid of any preconcieved notions of BASIC or how it has been implimented in the past. PowerBASIC is a dream to use, has a huge community, and compilers smaller and faster than most ANSI C programs I've seen. Also, check out their partial client list - you'll be in good company.

No, I do not work for them. I am a loyal customer and a geek that loves cool stuff. PB delivers.

I use it in conjunction with .NET and ANSI C. Check out their company history for some background then take a look at the delicious capabilities of their Windows and Console compilers.

They also have a kick-ass DOS Compiler that has put dinner on my table for years. As we know, many people are still using DOS and DOS-mode apps every day.

When looking at PowerBASIC you have to get rid of any preconcieved notions of BASIC or how it has been implimented in the past. PowerBASIC is a dream to use, has a huge community, and compilers smaller and faster than most ANSI C programs I've seen. Also, check out their partial client list - you'll be in good company.

No, I do not work for them. I am a loyal customer and a geek that loves cool stuff. PB delivers.

I use it in conjunction with .NET and ANSI C. Check out their company history for some background then take a look at the delicious capabilities of their Windows and Console compilers.

They also have a kick-ass DOS Compiler that has put dinner on my table for years. As we know, many people are still using DOS and DOS-mode apps every day.

When looking at PowerBASIC you have to get rid of any preconcieved notions of BASIC or how it has been implimented in the past. PowerBASIC is a dream to use, has a huge community, and compilers smaller and faster than most ANSI C programs I've seen. Also, check out their partial client list - you'll be in good company.

No, I do not work for them. I am a loyal customer and a geek that loves cool stuff. PB delivers.

One of the compilers used by arashiakari is PowerBASIC, which pretty well implies that the target platform is Windows.

True, and I don't think anyone is seriously suggesting that "LinuxBASIC" (or whatever you want to name it) would be a useful tool for development work on the kernel, or for writing drivers, or whatever. Clearly, that sort of task is best left to languages which don't rely on runtime modules, and which don't try to second-guess you or prevent you from doing things they don't think you should be doing. However, BASIC does have its uses - especially in its modern incarnations, where you have access to a lot of language features that used to be found only in "serious" languages like Pascal or, yes, even 'C'. (If you think BASIC is still mired in what it was back in the days of your old Commodore=64, or of GWBASIC, you really should check out what's being done with languages like PowerBASIC. While you're there, drop 'em a note encouraging them to finish up the PB For Linux version. :) ) Many of the programs I write in PowerBASIC (which, unlike VB, does not require a runtime DLL!) are one-off, single-function utilities to perform a specific task - usually, something simple and stupid, like running a custom test rig by trading sixteen-byte data packets with a board full of 8-bit microcontrollers, or searching a directory full of graphics files to make sure their extensions match their file types, or to act as a simple quick-n-dirty shell for a command-line utility. For these kinds of applications, a language which hides all of the gory details from you and takes care of them on its own can be quite desirable; it makes it possible for me to say "sure, no problem, give me fifteen minutes" to a co-worker who's trying to get into a file that was created ten years ago on some weird program that terminated all of the lines with instead of . :) A language like BASIC, with its English-like syntax, also opens up the world of programming to a larger group of hobbyist types who either can't, or don't necessarily want to, get their heads around the highly compressed (and somewhat arcane) syntax of 'C' and 'C++'. Many of them don't have any ambition to become professional programmers, and don't care that BASIC may be teaching them bad habits (or what 'C' programmers think are bad habits, anyway); all they want to do is throw together a small program to let them automate some tedious task, or implement a simple game, or control their latest electronics project through the parallel port. A good, Visual LinuxBASIC would go a long way towards attracting these kinds of people to the Linux world; right now, most of them stick with DOS or Windows because of the perception that they'll have to learn 'C++' before they can use it.

...There has never been a MDAC released by Microsoft that didn't crash windows? IE never crashed windows? MS-Office never crashed windows? Give me a break.

I was referring to a clean box, and said so clearly in my original post. There are plenty of sloppy coders working in the apps division of MS. The MDAC installs are among the most awful installs of anything available. No argument from me there.

If you can't expect Microsoft themselves to be able to write software that doesn't crash windows how do you expect your average VB programmer to?

I don't :). The average VB programmer is a beginner and doesn't know much more than drag-and-drop window building and basic event-handling. I'd guesstimate that fewer than 5% of VB programmers understand how Windows actually works. I'll also say that most VB apps can't crash Windows, either, because they don't have access to anything privileged.

The fact of the matter is that it's awfully difficult to write an app for windows that won't take down the system occationally. If for no other reason then you are using DLLs and you have no idea what's in them. How many apps depend on wininet.dll or the vb runtime or MSVCxxx Dlls?

Bullshit. I write system services and plenty of system-privilege apps that don't crash Windows. The *app* may crash until I get it finished, but that's not what you said. Anyone writing code that depends on wininet or the MSVC runtime and MFC dlls, frankly, is asking for what they get. But if you use the interfaces correctly, these don't crash Windows either. There are bugs in the common libraries to be sure, but that can be said for common Linux libraries as well, can't it? Of course the massive advantage with most Linux libraries is that the source is available. But my original post wasn't focused on the availablility of source.

You know I went to install the MS soap toolkit the other day and it insisted that I install IE5.5 and some service pack or another, then the rope.dll wouldn't register properly so I had to go download a later version and register it by hand. Just to be able to work with XML I had to download over thirty megabytes of stuff. So If I write an app using this toolkit is it my fault if the app crashes or is it possible that somewhere along that 30 megabytes of crap I installed on my machine something was broken?

Yep, it is your fault. All that shit is not necessary to work with XML. There are some reasonably good third-party libs that don't require all that crap. You apparently know as well as I do that developers using all that crap (besides the existence of that crap itself) are the cause of the problem. The most useful frame of mind I've found for writing Windows apps is "think small". Write with the fewest dependencies and libs possible. That pretty much leaves out developing in VB or using MFC, and avoiding the C runtime if possible. ATL is an excellent library, though, and there are some outstanding compilers out there if you prefer BASIC (check out http://www.powerbasic.com".