Check this out. I downloaded the test version and it looks pretty
good to me. Price is exceptionally competitive as well.

http://www.basic4ppc.com/

Steve

Big kahuna wrote:


I saw basic4ppc a while back and was going to recommend it, but it
seemed to me that there were a few issues for this specific community
- YMMV:

1) The BASIC is VBA and it's object-oriented. If you're working with
object-oriented code, you might as well use Java which is a tiny
stretch from VBA (add curly braces and semicolons) and more capable.

2) As a single-source, for-fee, proprietary offering, basic4ppc
presents developers with some of the same issues that they complain
about here, valid or not.

3) As with DesignBais, AccuTermGUI, and other products in this
industry, when you use a tool like basic4ppc you're limited to the set
of tools that they provide. For most purposes the built-in toolkit
seems to be complete. Each individual needs to decide if they're
willing to face that wall which may appear before them.

Another offering similar to basic4ppc is the free "App Inventor" from
Google, where there is no code at all (!). I did a project with this
and it was fun and complete. I used AI so that I could turn this
project over to a non-programmer friend so that he can maintain it.

Anyone who doesn't see the above as a concern should check out the
offerings. For anyone else, there's nothing wrong with using the free
tools and a mainstream language to write code like most other people
on the planet.

T

On Jul 18, 1:58*pm, Tony Gravagno <tony_grava... (AT) nospam (DOT) invalid>
wrote:
I can't help but disagree with this. I have done plenty of Java. You
have to be committed to strong typing to be happy with Java. It might
be my age, but I was never a BASIC programmer myself until recently (I
was a manager of UniBASIC developers) and I love working with MVBASIC
enhanced for objects. I am using Cache' and QM has enhanced the
language in this way too. This permits both the elegance of working
with objects with the elegance of duck-typing (loose typing). You then
have all the rope to hang yourself (loose typing) and tools to keep
you from doing so (use of OOP constructs, for example).

I am not an expert in VBA, but at this point, based on my professional
experiences and tastes, I'll choose an OO-enhanced loosely-typed
language over a strongly-typed language for most tasks most of the
time. My attempts to really use Java for real software have been
really slow going. cheers! --dawn

On 2011-07-18 14:58:05 -0400, Tony Gravagno
<tony_gravagno (AT) nospam (DOT) invalid> said:

Java is far more complex to learn and use the VBA.

This looks interesting as well.

--
Kevin Powick

On 2011-07-18 17:56:36 -0400, dawn <dawnwolthuis (AT) gmail (DOT) com> said:

Please elaborate on how QM supports Duck typing.

--
Kevin Powick

On Jul 18, 6:27*pm, Kevin Powick <nos... (AT) spamless (DOT) com> wrote:
I put "loose typing" in parens because my use of "duck typing" could
be questioned (and it was, funny that). I have not used QM OO and was
not using any OO-specific meaning for "duck typing." I am comfortable
classifying all MV BASIC as "duck-typed" as an alternative to calling
it "loosely typed" because everything is a string and can be treated
as such. If it looks like a string and acts like a string, MV BASIC
can treat it like a string, doing ICONVs and OCONVs and such. We are
not tied to some permanent "strong" typing. If you do not like this
use of "duck typing" then feel free to replace it with "loose
typing". --dawn

On Jul 20, 7:30*am, dawn <dawnwolth... (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote:
Hi
I love the expression Dawn. However in D3 one can force the program
to treat a variable as numeric by using a successful arithmetic
operation.
Foo = 0 starts life with both string and numeric flags set. However
Foo = 0;Foo += 0 turns off the string flag and speeds up numeric
comparisons for the rest of the program.
Peter McMurray

On 2011-07-19 17:30:41 -0400, dawn <dawnwolthuis (AT) gmail (DOT) com> said:

As long as you're comfortable, I guess that's what's important.

While duck typing can be considered a form of loose/dynamic typing, it
actually has a specific meaning wrt OO languages.

Of the MV products I know of that support OO, I can only speak about
QM, and it does support duck typing. In QM, an object can be passed as
part of a parameter list to a receiver, and as long as the receiver
acts only on methods/properties that exist within the passed object,
regardless of other methods/properties that may also exist within the
passed object, then those methods/properties will operate as expected.
Type and structure compatibility is not checked at compile time. A
hallmark of duck typing.

While duck typing is neat and useful in some areas, it does have its
downside. Debugging can be more difficult and unexpected behaviour can
happen when conceptually different objects that share some identical
methods/properties are passed to the "wrong" routine. Imagine a
"camera" object and a "gun" object passed to a routine that executes
the object's "shoot" method.

It was the vague use, likely due to vague understanding, that prompted
me to request for elaboration. Your response to my request for
elaboration included none, and reinforced my suspicion that you were
just throwing the term around without really understanding how it
applied to OO in MV, or perhaps any OO language.

--
Kevin Powick

On Jul 19, 7:50*pm, Kevin Powick <nos... (AT) spamless (DOT) com> wrote:
;-(

Of course you realize that I knew that you were trying to test me with
this question. I have never met you and do not know why you have some
problem with me, but heigh ho.

Yes, it does. I could not answer your exact question in that respect,
however, because I have not used QM with their OO extensions.

Yes, and also a reason that "procedural languages" can generally be
considered to have duck typing whether or not they support OO. I do
not know if this designation came about before or after the OO meaning
of duck typing (I could look that up, but I do not feel a need, and,
as you mentioned, this is all about my feelings ;-)

I am pleased as punch that you decided to read it that way. I hate it
when I come across as knowing anything. Well, to be honest, I started
out playing into your hand by coding up aCache' example of a class
method, but it seemed pretentious and unnecessary to turn this thread
into a discussion about the precise definition of duck typing wrt OOP
as that was more formal than my intended meaning (which was your point
anyway). I figured I would let you do the honors and you would enjoy
it much more if I continued to stick with my "no code, no facts"
approach ;-)

Yes, I've got your number, Kevin and I knew you were testing me. I
decided to pass your exam in my way instead of yours ;-)

ha, I did elaborate, just took it the less formal direction (primarily
to bug you, truth be told -- hubby says he cannot take me to a zoo
because I would poke the lions).

I so totally love that you think that. Given that I know how you like
to belittle me, I certainly could have looked it up if I did not know
the distinction. I didn't do that because in this case I just so
happen to have known what you were going for. After I wrote the little
function (class method in cache') I decided there would still be some
reason I did not pass your test, so I purposely didn't play your "see
if she knows anything at all" game.

Yup, feel free to assume I know nothing. I never feel a need to prove
otherwise. In fact I'm kicking myself that I even wrote this up trying
to claim otherwise. So, yes, it is just fine with me if you assume
that when I wrote "duck typing" and put "loose typing" in parenthesis
(knowing that a purist would not consider there to be duck typing with
anything outside of OOP, and I wanted to include all MVBASIC
languages, not just the OO-enhanced ones), I really had no clue what I
was writing. Please do not assume I have ever explained the
distinction in detail to anyone nor considered the implications
myself. If you want to think of me as having any knowledge at all in
this pr ofession, just think of me as typing cobol statements into 80
column cards. MOVE 1 to COUNTER. Thanks again for playing, Kevin. --
dawn

"dawn" <dawnwolthuis (AT) gmail (DOT) com> wrote

On Jul 19, 7:50 pm, Kevin Powick <nos... (AT) spamless (DOT) com> wrote:
;-(

Of course you realize that I knew that you were trying to test me with
this question. I have never met you and do not know why you have some
problem with me, but heigh ho.


*************
Dawn, once again, in the face of nonsensical criticism you show amazing
grace. You are a very classy woman.

With great respect,
Jeff