Since my last post, there has been a discussion on the Xojo forums about the things I said. Most of it has been very positive, and I am grateful to the responses and subsequent discussion that has arisen. However, there is one thing that has been mentioned a couple of times that I would like to address, and I want to do it here as it could possibly clarify what I said before.
Some people think that I should not refer to the underlying language of Xojo as BASIC, and that is a fair point, it is no longer strictly BASIC, but it does have it's roots in the language. Hell, it was once called RealBasic.
Xojo, in my opinion, is an evolution of the BASIC language. BASIC, for those that don't know, is an acronym for Beginners All-puporse Symbolic Instruction Code. This does not mean that is is only for beginners any more.
It was originally design in 1964 as an easier language for non-programmers to be able to create software for mathematics and scientific pursuits. It then became the favoured language for home computers during the 80's during the boom in the market with most home computers having a BASIC interpreter either built in or available as a cartridge add-on (notable exception being the Jupiter Ace, which used Forth).
At that time, the language was fairly limited in what it could do, and the structure of the language also meant that without careful planning, the code could become rather unwieldy and unmanageable. However, the popularity of the language meant that developers continued to evolve it. This involved adding proper functions and subroutines, custom data types and now full object oriented features.
So, the BASIC of today is now very different to the language first developed in the 60's, but does that mean that it is no longer BASIC? Personally, I would argue that it IS still BASIC. The language retains a lot of it's roots, and unlike some other languages, whilst there are some ANSI standards for the language, BASIC developers have always added their own quirks to the language.
In conclusion, I think that Xojo (the language) is BASIC in the same way that the language of Delphi is Pascal. Both have their roots in their respective original languages, but both have exceeded the originals.
Does this make Xojo any less desirable, useable or important? Not at all, today it is a very capable and strong language.
For more information about the origins of BASIC, take a look at Wikipedia
I tend to agree with you and for this reason it should be easier to entice programmers of other Basic like languages to at least consider Xojo; then discover how powerful Xojo is.
ReplyDeleteJust my two cents worth.
ps. I'm about to return to Xojo attempting to develop a PDF application. (some re-familiarisation will be required)
Steven.
I learnt programming with Basic in the eighties when I was young then I switched to ASM, Pascal, C, C++, ...etc... to come back to Basic 30 years later :-) ... It is funny but I feel very confortable with Basic, Pascal and C because they are the first languages I learnt when I was a kid. Nowadays I only use Xojo and PHP.
ReplyDeleteMy languages are also Xojo and PHP these days (although I do tend to write a lot of Javascript too).
DeleteI agree with what you are saying about feeling comfortable with Basic, etc, although how I ever managed to write anything useful without Object Orientation is beyond me now. I seem to have become very reliant on that mindset when coding.