Computer programming

[wolfknightx]

Originally posted by wm2k1

to program in visual basic, u'll need a compiler from microsoft - there is no free one (unless u get the learning edition which is very limited)

visual basic is very easy to learn, beginners to programming could pick it up really fast

once u get a hold of it, u could also program in asp using vbscript

There is a free clone of Visual Basic for Win9X by William Yu called RapidQ. William Yu is the guy who managed the ABC code snippets for basic for several years, for those of you familiar with the ABC code updates on places like simtel. RapidQ is 100% freeware, compiles beautifly, and i'm pretty sure he gives the source code with it. It's worth checking out.

Wolfknight

P.S: There might be a few unix ports for it now too.

 

[wm2k1]

Originally posted by wolfknight


There is a free clone of Visual Basic for Win9X by William Yu called RapidQ. William Yu is the guy who managed the ABC code snippets for basic for several years, for those of you familiar with the ABC code updates on places like simtel. RapidQ is 100% freeware, compiles beautifly, and i'm pretty sure he gives the source code with it. It's worth checking out.

Wolfknight

P.S: There might be a few unix ports for it now too.

there is a free one out there???
basic was developed by the microsoft during its early days
they builded upon it w/ visual basic

its copyrighted by microsoft, would it be legal for that Yu guy to create a visual basic compiler? if its not then it wouldn't be legal to use it

 

[wolfknightx]

Well like all things Microsoft, the software was first developed by someone else before they got ahold of it. Microsoft capitalized on basic and copyrighted their version of it as BASIC and BASICA on IBM PC systems, but even as early as 1981, there was a public domain clone of it named GWBASIC. Borland figured a version of Basic would be a good idea, and launched Turbo Basic. Quickbasic came out about the same time as version 1.1 of Turbo Basic, but unlike Microsoft, Turbo Basic was developed by their own engineers.

Microsoft seems to have a bad habit of having other people develop the core modules, and then they simply add onto it later after they buy it from the original owner. They did it with dos, they did it with NT (ahem, OS/2?) and they did it with Windows (the famous Xerox GUI!). Basic was never something they could buy though...it was developed by MIT, and the language itself was public domain. This is why anyone can create a version of basic and sell it. Be it traditional basic, visual basic, or basic for an embedded system (like the Basic Stamp for embedded controllers).

I'm writing a scripting language for my web server which is an offset of turbo pascal and quickbasic, but compiles cgi's for you. Unless I name it Microsoft Basic-like scripting language, I won't feel any legal repercussions

Woflnknight

 

[wolfknightx]

Just found their website.

Just found their website again, and it looks like they FULLY support unix now

http://www.basicguru.com/rapidq/

from their website:

Rapid-Q is a cross platform BASIC programming language capable of generating GUI and CONSOLE applications (including CGI applications). It directly supports MySQL, DirectX, a bit of Direct3D, Sockets, a bit of COM, component/object programming, and many other nice features. Rapid-Q is currently available for Windows 95/98/NT/2000, Linux/i386, Solaris/Sparc, and HP-UX. Although Rapid-Q is still in Beta (for over a year already), it is fully functional and FREE!

screenshots:

http://www.basicguru.com/rapidq/sshots.html


X-BASIC 32/64

Here' something else you might find neat...a 32/64-bit basic compiler for win32 and unix...it's freeware too, and if you've ever used Quickbasic or PDS, you can convert the programs to X-basic. I've used this one a little more than rapid Q, and like it a lot

http://www.maxreason.com/software/xbasic/xbasic.html