Re: Spritefile & BASIC OPENOUT (PRINT#) internal file format...

On Oct 9, 12:07 am, Rob Kendrick <n...@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
.NET was a system cited by you.

It was not. It was cited by the OP as the development platform he
intended to use.

(And increasingly few Windows systems do not have a CLR installed)

True, but many do not. It has always been an important feature of
BB4W that it supports versions of Windows back to 95, which
surprisingly many people still use.

I'm surprised that you don't find this statement surprising.

Why would I? Take for example the largest commercial application of
BBC BASIC for Windows that I am aware of: SimplEPOS. The processes
carried out by a Point Of Sale terminal are almost entirely I/O bound.

Unless typical BB4W apps are simple wrappers around some other workhorse.

Well, it's certainly true that if I want to perform an FFT, for
example, I call the routines in FFTW.DLL from BB4W; I'm not silly
enough to code it in BASIC!

I couldn't live without debugging tools such as Valgrind or DDD.

I'm sure, but that's primarily because you're not programming in
interpreted BASIC. If a BASIC interpreter requires that level of
debugging there's something seriously wrong with it.

BBC BASIC for Windows has no bugs of any consequence
That you know of.

It has no bugs of any consequence, full stop. Given the number of
people that use it, and the number of programs written using it that
are in everyday use, I state that very confidently.

My point is, that as a closed system, if you suddenly should
unfortunately snuff it, there's no way for people to make their old
applications run on new systems.

What "new systems" do you envisage? Up to the present Microsoft have
maintained binary application compatibility, so a program written for
Windows 95 (and following all the 'rules') will still run unmodified
on Vista. If they are silly enough to abandon that philosophy, BB4W
will be just one of thousands of 'legacy' applications that stop
working.

there's no reason I can see to spend the money on BB4W when vastly
superior systems exist for less money or none at all.

I'm astonished that you keep harping on about the (minimal) cost.

As far as I can see, as I said earlier, BB4W is exclusively for people
who want to run simplistic BBC BASIC programs for Windows, or who are
unwilling to learn something more appropriate.  If that niche puts
meals on your table, then fine.  But don't start saying it's somehow a
sensible choice for any situation other than that.

That simply isn't supported by the facts. I am an experienced
programmer, both professionally (for many years I worked for BBC R&D,
developing hardware and software systems) and privately. I used to
write my Windows applications in C (that's how BB4W itself was
developed) but now I exclusively write them in BBC BASIC. That's not
because I am a masochist, or because I feel I have to use my own
product, but because of the productivity gains it has produced.

As I keep saying, BBC BASIC *isn't* suitable for all Windows
programming tasks, by a very long chalk. However I state
unequivocally that it *is* suitable for a great many tasks. Its
competitors are not products like Visual Studio, but other Windows
BASICs like Liberty Basic or PowerBasic. Interestingly, I know of
PowerBasic uses who have moved to BBC BASIC, despite the significant
drop in execution speed they will have experienced.

Richard.
http://www.rtrussell.co.uk/
To reply by email change 'news' to my forename.
.

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