Atheist: Could it have something to do with the authors of the SW? They don't take it seriously, because everyone slags it and sales stay low? It's just the way it is. I've found a couple of problems with the ide, as well (Amos Pro, I still love it). 3 at least.
Yes. AMOS had lots of bugs in its editor, and it saved all its programs in binary format. If your program file got corrupt, the whole thing was screwed. AMOS was a lot of fun back when I had no knowledge of more powerful languages like C and Perl. Looking back, I realize AMOS was pretty horrible for anything other than games. I have lots of fond memories, but it sure was a harsh learning experience. ;-)
The Amiga version? I've never used it (Blitz, any version), but you must be refering to the windoze version? Anything on windoze is MAMMOTH!!!! I found a commercial Ram Disk: program for w98se. It was 114K in size and required a 1.4 Meg DLL file to run!?!?!!!! The DLL didn't come with the Ram Disk, I had to track it down on the internet. Then, you find out it was programmed in visual basic!
The PC version, actually. I've seen some Windows programs that are small and effecient (Notepad, for example), but they don't really use the GUI well, and usually call lots of external libraries. Windows has WAAAAAAY too many DLLs! Blitz compiles most of its environment into your program executable, therefore, you can't even fit two compiled programs on a floppy. :-P
Why can't an ide in C/C++ open a window, everytime you type a keyword in, asking you which library you want to use, tick off a checkbox beside the library, and it automatically puts it in as an include at the beginning of the source code?
Oh my God... Clippy for programming! That would work only in tutorial mode. Once you learn what you need, you'd better be able to turn that feature off!
What I'd like to see is auto formatting for subroutine headers and a clickable drop-down list of all global and local variables in your program. That's what REALLY drives me nuts about reading Perl code from other people. Nobody does a good job labeling their headers or outlining their variable usage!
And, of course, you should be able to turn it off if you don't use it. How about the ability to create sub header templates, and let the IDE fill in the blanks? Being able to read your code in any text editor is nice, but I really hate writing code in a plain text editor. I write most my Perl code in Win32Pad. I'm STILL looking for a simple Notepad clone that colors text and matches brackets automatically.
mdwh2: How big is a Hello World program in AMOS on the Amiga, for example?
If I remember correctly, a compiled AMOS Pro executable is a minimum of 53K. Remember that AMOS doesn't seriously use any OS libraries, so a PC version of AMOS Pro would be much, much bigger by default. Hence, Blitz Basic on the PC makes executables about 750K in size.
Don't get me wrong - I think BASICs, or other "beginner" languages, have their place - but there are plenty of reasons why ppl move onto other languages.
Yeah. I just wish people weren't so prejeduce against BASIC. If it wasn't for interpreted languages like BASIC, you'd have to imagine that scipting languages like Perl would still be in the stone age. I love writing interpreted code instead of compiled code.
What a total nonsense...
First don't confuse C with C++. C++ is targetted mainly for appliaction development and it would be a nightmare to write lowlevel OS stuff in it.
Here here. Since I've started learning C++, I've realized why people are so upset with it: they're trying to use C++ when plain C will do. Use what works.
Bloodline: This is a good reason why I think the world does need a BASIC.
No, the world needs a better BASIC! :-D
