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Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Feb 25th, 2014, 2:50pm

As many of you will know, I recently left the LB forum having tried, but failed, to persuade them to lift their prohibition on mentioning LBB (it was apparently vetoed by Carl).

Without access to the membership of that forum, or the LB Yahoo group, it is impossible to 'spread the word' about LBB - the vast majority of Liberty BASIC users don't know it exists and never will.

Therefore it seems a disproportionate use of my time to put a lot of effort into developing LBB, when the number of users is likely to remain tiny (the membership of this forum currently standing at 45 compared with 5660 on the LB forum!).

So my intention is to release one more major update to LBB, which I anticipate being within the next week or so, but thereafter to wind down development. If serious bugs are reported I will fix them (if possible) but otherwise it is unlikely that any more significant enhancements will take place.

Sorry if this is a disappointment, but after more than two years LBB has failed to make any significant inroads into the LB user base, and there's little point flogging a dead horse.

As time goes on, increasing numbers of people are going to be caught out by LB 4.04's incompatibility with touchscreen PCs, and the DEP issue could become a problem as more PCs have it fully enabled by default. Unless Carl is able to fix these bugs in LB4, or LB5 is released, that will force users to look for alternatives. LBB will of course remain available for download to satisfy that need if and when it arises.

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by JosephE on Feb 25th, 2014, 6:53pm

Liberty BASIC aside, the engine behind LBB is excellent.

We talked about this a little via email, but why not change the syntax up and develop your own language? The Liberty BASIC programming language is a proprietary specification (of sorts), and the Liberty BASIC community is very tiny with LB5 being postponed so much. Perhaps if you developed your own language, word would get around smiley (Much like AutoIt, or ThinBASIC - Yours would have the advantage, though, as they are both interpreted, not compiled)

LBB is impressive and I will continue to use it smiley I would just love to see it evolve into something that's not related to Liberty BASIC so that there would be peace between the two camps, and so that it wouldn't be tied to backwards compatibility with LB (which in my opinion is very disorganized from a syntax perspective)
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Feb 25th, 2014, 7:56pm

on Feb 25th, 2014, 6:53pm, JosephE wrote:
the engine behind LBB is excellent.

BBC BASIC!

Quote:
why not change the syntax up and develop your own language?

The market for BASICs is already saturated, and doing that would guarantee even fewer users than LBB has!

Quote:
Yours would have the advantage, though, as they are both interpreted, not compiled

LBB isn't compiled. It isn't even directly interpreted - it translates the Liberty BASIC program into BBC BASIC code, and that is then interpreted. So it's even further removed from a compiled language than the ones you mention!

Quote:
The Liberty BASIC programming language is a proprietary specification (of sorts)

As far as I am aware there is nothing to stop anyone writing a clone of a programming language. Carl Gundel has stated publicly that he is quite happy for people to use LBB. I developed it only after consulting with Carl and other senior Liberty BASIC supporters.

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by net2014 on Feb 25th, 2014, 8:31pm

Quote:
As far as I am aware there is nothing to stop anyone writing a clone of a programming language. Carl Gundel has stated publicly that he is quite happy for people to use LBB. I developed it only after consulting with Carl and other senior Liberty BASIC supporters.

Richard.


Then why is any mention of LBB banned on the LB form? For me, LBB gave LB4 a new lease of life. I doubt LB5 will be fully developed in time for me to make any use of it - I've been waiting on promises since at least 2005. I too have left the LB forum and will probably stick with LB4 and LBB now. I needed a Linux version of LB5 but I think that is impracticable now.

As I understand it, the LB forum is not an official support forum (that is on Yahoo) so it must be the moderators who are controlling the content, not Carl. They as discrediting the forum IMHO. sad
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Feb 25th, 2014, 10:18pm

on Feb 25th, 2014, 8:31pm, net2014 wrote:
Then why is any mention of LBB banned on the LB forum?

Carl says he's happy for LBB to be used, but one can understand that he doesn't want it to be promoted, potentially taking away business and eroding his income.

Quote:
For me, LBB gave LB4 a new lease of life. I doubt LB5 will be fully developed in time for me to make any use of it - I've been waiting on promises since at least 2005.

I agree, and you can be assured that LBB will continue to be available and supported, just not as actively developed as it has been up to now.

Quote:
As I understand it, the LB forum is not an official support forum (that is on Yahoo)

I think you're right, but in practice the owner of the forum has made it clear that Carl, who is one of the senior moderators, has a casting vote. The other moderators cannot be held responsible.

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Core on Feb 26th, 2014, 01:25am

on Feb 25th, 2014, 2:50pm, Richard Russell wrote:
Without access to the membership of that forum, or the LB Yahoo group, it is impossible to 'spread the word' about LBB - the vast majority of Liberty BASIC users don't know it exists and never will.

I came across LBB via a Google search while researching LB stuff.

on Feb 25th, 2014, 2:50pm, Richard Russell wrote:
Therefore it seems a disproportionate use of my time to put a lot of effort into developing LBB, when the number of users is likely to remain tiny (the membership of this forum currently standing at 45 compared with 5660 on the LB forum!).


But, out of the 5660 I would gamble that 5600 are just dead accounts, compared to other forums its dead in there, including the Run Basic Forum.


on Feb 25th, 2014, 2:50pm, Richard Russell wrote:
So my intention is to release one more major update to LBB, which I anticipate being within the next week or so, but thereafter to wind down development. If serious bugs are reported I will fix them (if possible) but otherwise it is unlikely that any more significant enhancements will take place.

Sorry if this is a disappointment, but after more than two years LBB has failed to make any significant inroads into the LB user base, and there's little point flogging a dead horse.


Are you assuming that all users of LBB are registered members of this forum? or are you tracking the Downloads from your page. I have been using LBB for all final .exe however I just registered to reply to this post.


Question: What was your original intentions with LBB? As far as I see you dont appear to be making a profit from it as its free. Having said that, what would be the difference if 50 people used it as opposed to 800 people?

-Joe
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Feb 26th, 2014, 06:46am

on Feb 26th, 2014, 01:25am, Core wrote:
Are you assuming that all users of LBB are registered members of this forum? or are you tracking the Downloads from your page.

No, my figures were deliberately exaggerated to make the point. The Yahoo! LBB group has 128 members but I have no way of knowing the actual number of users.

Quote:
What was your original intentions with LBB?

I was frustrated by Liberty BASIC being bug-ridden, bloated and incredibly slow; LBB was my attempt to provide a solution. It was also an interesting challenge and a good demonstration of the power and flexibility of BBC BASIC.

Quote:
what would be the difference if 50 people used it as opposed to 800 people?

None whatsoever from a money point of view, that isn't my motivation. But I often have to choose whether to spend my time working on BBC BASIC or working on LBB, for example. The number of users is a factor in making that decision.

Richard.

Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Phineas Freak on Feb 26th, 2014, 08:18am

on Feb 25th, 2014, 2:50pm, Richard Russell wrote:
As time goes on, increasing numbers of people are going to be caught out by LB 4.04's incompatibility with touchscreen PCs, and the DEP issue could become a problem as more PCs have it fully enabled by default.


And that is a perfect opportunity for LBB to shine and show it's capabilities. Developing with and within "vanilla" LB for the newer Windows OS's or writing complex programs is a major PITA. Addons like LBW don't help either since it is the nature of the current version of LB that holds us back. LBB on the other hand can help overcome these limitations.

I believe that developing LBB to include the features that were previously discussed (http://lbb.conforums.com/index.cgi?board=suggestions&action=display&num=1389201278) would help even more LB users to use it.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Feb 26th, 2014, 08:52am

on Feb 26th, 2014, 08:18am, PreciseTiming wrote:
I believe that developing LBB to include the features that were previously discussed would help even more LB users to use it.

As I said, I plan to release one more major version quite soon; it will have some new features from that list.

But I think we need to be realistic. What reason is there to think that the rate of take-up of LBB, which has been extremely slow in the more than two years since its release, is likely to pick up?

There are a whole load of reasons why very few Liberty BASIC programmers use LBB:
Richard.
M.A. C.Eng. M.I.E.T. smiley
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by net2014 on Feb 26th, 2014, 09:36am

on Feb 26th, 2014, 08:52am, Richard Russell wrote:
There are a whole load of reasons why very few Liberty BASIC programmers use LBB:
Not knowing it exists; I suspect that is true of a surprisingly large number.


True, I knew nothing of LBB till late 2013

Quote:
Loyalty to Carl; one potential user of LBB told me he felt guilty about using a free product when he'd paid for LB.


Illogical, the paid for app is still being used to generate code and long-time users would continue to use it; LBB does its enhancement tricks. In fact more LB customers would be attracted if they knew that a free enhancement enabled generation of a (mostly) single exe application. I realise that the astute could migrate to BBC4W but most hobby programmers who had become proficient with LB will stick with LB. Carl I think is missing an opportunity to keep LB4 ticking along for a while yet. Too many people are put off by the announcement of LB5 back in 2005 and it is still to see the light of day now well into 2014.

And I appreciate the fact that LBB is free, even after extensive unpaid development work. Thank you Richard.

Quote:
Not invented here' syndrome; some LB users place a high premium on the home-grown-American nature of LB (the clue is in its name and logo!).


I thought Americans worshipped UK goodshuh >wink

Quote:
Better the devil you know: LB has many bugs and other quirks, but once users have got used to them and found workarounds they don't want to have to tweak their code to run in LBB (even if it's rarely necessary).


huh

Quote:
Distrust of LBB's 'provenance'; some people see LBB as a 'toy' product developed by an amateur, whilst LB is seen as 'professional'. As a Chartered Engineer with decades of experience in designing hardware and software systems I naturally don't agree, but you can't easily fight people's perceptions.Richard.
M.A. C.Eng. M.I.E.T. smiley


Illogical again, but I don't know where that idea comes from.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Feb 26th, 2014, 11:39am

on Feb 26th, 2014, 09:36am, net2014 wrote:
Illogical

If everybody behaved logically the world would be a better place. smiley

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by tsh73 on Feb 27th, 2014, 08:25am

Just logged on to say thanks to Richard.

Yes I think main reason for low user numbers is "Not knowing it exists".
And it's a moderators' - I would not say "fault" - but consequence of moderators' position.
Really, for the common good, LBB should be linked just from a forum firstpage (right along with links to WIKI).
IMHO of course.

(btv another reason for people not registering might be fact that it *just works*. Not that bad reason wink )
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by flotulopex on Feb 27th, 2014, 10:36am

It will take time until LBB gets more known, more popular, but like all other "good" products, it will get its reward, everyday a little more.

I'm am not a programming specialist and still found in LBB extraordinary tool to enhance LB4. Other people go/went the same way I do/did, for sure.

Most probably, for "political" or "loyalty" reasons, some of LB4 programmers can not admit they use your program - these ones will never show up in your LBB user's count.

Don't stop your great work wink
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Feb 27th, 2014, 3:48pm

on Feb 27th, 2014, 08:25am, tsh73 wrote:
Really, for the common good, LBB should be linked just from a forum firstpage (right along with links to WIKI).

That would be nice. Perhaps you should suggest it to the forum's owner! Sadly, I expect Carl has a veto on that too.

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Feb 27th, 2014, 3:51pm

on Feb 27th, 2014, 10:36am, flotulopex wrote:
It will take time until LBB gets more known

Isn't two-years-and-four-months long enough?! It seems to me that if LBB is still not well known after that length of time, it probably never will be. sad

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by flotulopex on Feb 28th, 2014, 1:59pm

Hum...

Everybody who has once tried LBB will not stop using it!

Still the problem is not solved about LBB's publicity and there are none so deaf as those who will not hear - if these people "refuse" to take that chance, who cares....

Everyday, new people look for a BASIC programming language. Why would people choose LB4 or any other similar language instead of BBC then?

When I was looking around the net, one year ago, about finding the (imo) "simplest possible" programming language, if found BBC and also LB4. I finally decided to go for LB4 because:
- LB4 looks a little bit closer to DB3/CLIPPER I was using 30 years ago;
- the better appearance of syntax and the language's command words;
- the overall aspect of the web site;
- the very small effort I had to make to find several comprehensive and simple code samples;
- the importance of the community (forum, Wiki);
- the tools (IDE) I wouldn't have to "provide" by myself.

The price was absolutely not an argument.

What about making BBC more "sexy"?

Your idea about making a powerful editor, debugger and more is just great. Newcomers love to be cocooned smiley

Make all that "attractive" and I'm sure you'll have new adepts ;-)
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Mar 1st, 2014, 09:30am

on Feb 26th, 2014, 08:52am, Richard Russell wrote:
There are a whole load of reasons why very few Liberty BASIC programmers use LBB:
  • Not knowing it exists...
  • Loyalty to Carl...
  • 'Not invented here' syndrome...
  • Better the devil you know...
  • Distrust of LBB's 'provenance'...

Another, indirect, reason for the poor take-up of LBB is that Liberty BASIC's functionality is so often inaccurately documented, incompletely documented or not documented at all! To give an extreme example, the char[n] structure type, so vital to accessing some Windows APIs, is as far as I know not mentioned anywhere in the official LB docs!

This means that anybody trying to write a 'clone' of LB 4.04 has no reliable specification to work towards. This contrasts with a language like C which has a formal specification that should, in principle, allow a fully compatible implementation to be developed. Much of the functionality which LBB needs to emulate has been discovered by trial-and-error or, frequently, by an incompatibility being reported to me by a user.

It is human nature that somebody trying LBB for the first time, and encountering an incompatibility of this kind, is likely to give up and return to using LB, rather than going to the trouble of reporting it to me. If they did report it I would quite likely be able to offer a compatible workaround, or fix the issue in LBB at short notice.

I don't know how to overcome this, other than to emphasise that reports of incompatibility are always welcome, and are indeed an important way that LBB gets improved.

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Mar 1st, 2014, 2:28pm

on Feb 25th, 2014, 8:31pm, net2014 wrote:
I needed a Linux version of LB5 but I think that is impracticable now.

I am looking for somebody to take on the task of porting BBC BASIC for Windows to Linux, which would be a first step towards porting LBB to Linux. If you know of anybody who might be interested in taking on that task, or at least helping with it, perhaps you could put them in touch with me. They would need a good understanding of Linux internals (i.e. APIs) and be able to code in C and/or x86 assembler.

Of course even if BB4W were ported to Linux, that still leaves LBB with exactly the same difficulty as LB5 - support for GUI widgets! Both LB4 and LBB rely on native Windows widgets, but under Linux one would need to use something like WxWidgets or implement them from scratch as Carl has been attempting.

A version of LBB with GUI support from WxWidgets could in principle be platform-neutral across Windows/Linux/MacOSX, but we 'just' need to overcome that initial step of porting BB4W! I don't have the time, energy or inclination to do it myself, but I would be happy to provide somebody else with the necessary information and support.

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richey on Mar 2nd, 2014, 12:33am

on Feb 28th, 2014, 1:59pm, flotulopex wrote:
Hum...

Everybody who has once tried LBB will not stop using it!

Still the problem is not solved about LBB's publicity and there are none so deaf as those who will not hear - if these people "refuse" to take that chance, who cares....

Everyday, new people look for a BASIC programming language. Why would people choose LB4 or any other similar language instead of BBC then?

When I was looking around the net, one year ago, about finding the (imo) "simplest possible" programming language, if found BBC and also LB4. I finally decided to go for LB4 because:
- LB4 looks a little bit closer to DB3/CLIPPER I was using 30 years ago;
- the better appearance of syntax and the language's command words;
- the overall aspect of the web site;
- the very small effort I had to make to find several comprehensive and simple code samples;
- the importance of the community (forum, Wiki);
- the tools (IDE) I wouldn't have to "provide" by myself.

The price was absolutely not an argument.

What about making BBC more "sexy"?

Your idea about making a powerful editor, debugger and more is just great. Newcomers love to be cocooned smiley

Make all that "attractive" and I'm sure you'll have new adepts ;-)


BB4W does nor need to become any more "attractive". It is by far a more capable language than LB. It has an established pedigree having been around since the 1980s and has been developed since then by Richard into a powerful and flexible language. It produces small and fast standalone exec's and is (as far as any software can be) bug free. Its graphics capabilities are outstanding and its IDE is far superior to that provided by LB.

The only advantages that LB offers over BB4W that I can see and the only reason why I give any of my time to LB are:

1) easier GUI programming. In LB, GUI programming is built into the language and it is really easy to use whereas you have to use libraries with BB4W. However, this is one of the reasons why LB produces such slow and bloated execs and why LBB is so useful.

2) larger, more active and supportive (if tightly controlled) community along with extensive learning materials; although BB4W comes with a good tutorial and documentation that is comprehensive and second to none (plus there is lots of older BBC BASIC material out there and it is compatible with BB4W).

Actually, I suspect the reason why LB is more 'popular' than BB4W is more to do with the fact that it is (one of) the language used in 'Beginning Programming for Dummies' and 'Programming for the Absolute Beginner' books.

Re: Winding down LBB
Post by CryptoMan on Mar 2nd, 2014, 9:32pm

It will be very bad if you stopped LBB or you are not participating in LB Forum.

I believe LBB has an important place in the LB world. Each has it's better parts. Initial writing and debugging is easier on LB. However, once it is written I prefer to compile it and run it with LBB because one single EXE without any other files to bundle with.

Furthermore, my code which gives problems in TKN form has no problems properly running as LBB compiled EXE.

I have tried and actively using LBB and am very happy with it. I would love to see it evolving.

I also used the forum but because it was not forcing any registeration i did not register until now..

If you look at LB forum you will see that nothing much is really happening. Some topics are not updated for months and years. Some of the most important and useful contributions are your contributions in LB forum.

I think anyone who works seriously with LB knows LBB and it is one of the most useful tools for LB. i wish LB adapts some of LBB's features like INCLUDE statements and better USING formats.

I believe that LBB should be part of LBB in that it becomes the compile to EXE option and TKN format is scrapped. INCLUDE should be part of LB and a multiple source code tabs like Notepad+ is implemented.

So. I wish that you change your mind and keep up the good work.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Mar 5th, 2014, 10:39am

on Mar 2nd, 2014, 9:32pm, CryptoMan wrote:
It will be very bad if you stopped LBB or you are not participating in LB Forum.

I can't even see the LB forum now, because the settings have been changed so you need to be a member even to view posts. sad

Quote:
Initial writing and debugging is easier on LB. However, once it is written I prefer to compile it and run it with LBB because one single EXE without any other files to bundle with.

Hopefully by adding the debugger and profiler to LBB v2.50 I have made it easier to use LBB (perhaps in conjunction with LBW) for the entire development cycle.

Quote:
I think anyone who works seriously with LB knows LBB and it is one of the most useful tools for LB.

I hope you are right, but I am not so confident. The administrators of the LB forum go to great lengths to try to make sure LB users don't find out about LBB. Evidently they don't think it is a "useful tool", they see it only as a threat.

Quote:
So. I wish that you change your mind and keep up the good work.

I will continue to support LBB, but I don't intend to develop it further to any great extent. If the senior members of the 'LB community' change their minds and acknowledge LBB as having some value I may reconsider, but at the moment that doesn't seem likely.

Richard
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by TexasPete on Mar 5th, 2014, 10:54am

Richard, I have a web site that I am happy to promote LBB.
I will be happy to support your site. I believe there is plenty of room out there for LBB and Lb. I don't know what all the fuss is about. I do visit the lbb site regularly. Some of the other people would be happy to to put a website up to contuinue to spread the word. I will be sending you some money soon.
Thank you for your efforts
Texas Pete
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Mar 5th, 2014, 2:55pm

on Mar 5th, 2014, 10:54am, TexasPete wrote:
I have a web site that I am happy to promote LBB.

The more widely LBB is promoted, the more likely it is that people will find out about it.

Quote:
I will be sending you some money soon.

I have no need for any money! Really, I don't!! grin

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richey on Mar 22nd, 2014, 7:39pm

on Mar 5th, 2014, 10:39am, Richard Russell wrote:
I can't even see the LB forum now, because the settings have been changed so you need to be a member even to view posts. sad


Hi Richard - it looks like the settings have reverted back to enable guests to view the LB Conforum. Carl has also released Liberty BASIC v4.5 - shocked . Does that affect the current version of LB Booster in any way?

Edit: Hmm...not sure if he has actually released it yet (couldn't find a copy on the LB website or on the conforum) or if it is imminent?
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Mar 22nd, 2014, 9:21pm

on Mar 22nd, 2014, 7:39pm, Richey wrote:
Carl has also released Liberty BASIC v4.5 - shocked .

What now seems to be called version 4.5 is what was previously called version 4.05 (which was made available to a select few some time ago), by all accounts. The change to the version numbering may be to give the impression that it's more different than it actually is.

The most notable thing is just how many bugs have not been fixed in this release. sad

Quote:
Does that affect the current version of LB Booster in any way?

There are a few new TEXTEDITOR commands which I could easily provide in LBB if anybody thinks they are useful.

The memory limit has been raised. LBB's current limit is 100 Mbytes; it could be increased to 500 Mbytes but I'm not sure that it's desirable to go to 1 Gbyte because the more address space taken by LBB (or LB) the less there is left for DLLs, bitmaps, sprites etc.

Quote:
Hmm...not sure if he has actually released it yet

No, it's in Beta as far as I can see.

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by CirothUngol on Mar 25th, 2014, 01:44am

Well, this seems like the '2 cents' forum topic, so here's mine:

I used Just BASIC for well over a year before deciding to purchase Liberty BASIC two years ago. I was already using LBB at that time and bought LB for the IDE. But now, with the inclusion of a full (and better) debugger in LBB and the free availability of LB Workshop there's no need to use anything else.

LB Booster + LB Workshop = better, easier, and more versatile IDE + faster, smaller, and more powerful applications.
...and it's FREE! I paid for Liberty BASIC 4.04 and I no longer use it, ever.

We're very glad you've designed this application that so greatly extends the capabilities of the Liberty BASIC dialect that we'd already become accustomed to. It allows us to continue using all the simple GUI commands while affording us the benefit of quick and compact executables with all the bells and whistles. Yay!

As to the question about the inclusion of the new features in LB '4.5', you may want to add them just to keep the steady 'LB4' compatibility, especially if they aren't difficult to implement.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Mar 25th, 2014, 09:52am

on Mar 25th, 2014, 01:44am, CirothUngol wrote:
As to the question about the inclusion of the new features in LB '4.5', you may want to add them just to keep the steady 'LB4' compatibility, especially if they aren't difficult to implement.

I agree. We won't know the exact syntax until Carl releases v4.5 so there's not a lot I can do immediately.

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by terciops on Mar 25th, 2014, 8:55pm

Richard,
from my POV I would not be able to use and distribute my programs in LB alone. Even disregarding the speed increase of LBB, the single EXE file standalone facility is the significant feature of LBB for me. That we may get this facility in LB5 is something like 'good times tomorrow', and I am not getting any younger....

You mentioned the idea of porting to LINUX, would that include the MAC? If your LBB code ran on the MAC - well the sky is your oyster.... There is nothing (apart from certain important and useful body parts) that I wouldn't give for a MAC version of LBB.

Now that LB Workshop is freeware and LBB's run engine works straight from [F5] I have no doubts that this is the best option of all. True the BASIC market is saturated, but I think you have to consider the huge difference between what is being used 'in anger' as opposed to casual play.

I guess the idea of improving the LBB IDE is not so daft, but then the LBW environment is quite adequate (although I like LB Builder more for larger projects) and re-inventing a round wheel is sort of pointless unless you have absolutely nothing else to do.

On my relentless search for a language to teach at work I have tried many, even to the point of being given a full 'educational licence' for PYTHON from JetBrains. PYTHON is nice enough and has lots of features, but it is not a language to get your feet wet with. The learning curve is just to steep to start with and despondency sets in real soon. It is rather like having to build an aircraft before you can learn to fly.

However I can get my students up and running with LB / LBB from virtually day 1, and they get a single EXE for their trouble to take home on a USB stick for Show and Tell.

Rather like the old GWBASIC, LBB requires no install and the GUI is quite usable for starters. Perhaps this is the way to increase the user base. Rather than hanging LBB on LB's coat-tails, push it as a complete solution for beginners with LBW as an IDE upgrade as skill and understanding improves.

Just a few cents worth.

Ken


Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Mar 25th, 2014, 11:03pm

on Mar 25th, 2014, 8:55pm, terciops wrote:
You mentioned the idea of porting to LINUX, would that include the MAC?

I know even less about MacOS than I do about Linux, and that's saying something! Realistically I don't think you can expect LBB ever to run on either platform, other than via a Windows emulator (e.g. Wine/Crossover/Parallels). Porting it is something I'm unable to do alone, and nobody has volunteered to help.

Quote:
Perhaps this is the way to increase the user base. Rather than hanging LBB on LB's coat-tails, push it as a complete solution for beginners with LBW as an IDE upgrade as skill and understanding improves.

In my opinion that's a non-starter, as I think I've said before.

It would take a great deal of work to turn LBB into a language that could stand alone - the Liberty BASIC 'stupidities' would have to be stripped out for a start - and even if one could do that the market for BASICs is already saturated and it would be impossible for LBB (or something based on it) to carve out a worthwhile niche.

LBB's sole justification for existence is its compatibility with LB, and its only significant market is current LB users. The challenge is how to get it more widely known amongst that group.

Richard.
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Rod on Mar 26th, 2014, 7:33pm

Quote:
The challenge is how to get it more widely known amongst that group.


I don't know what Carl actually thinks but perhaps if he saw it as less of a threat and more of an enhancement it might get more airtime.

Currently it is positioned as a free alternative to Liberty BASIC, so destroying his market and intellectual property. What if it was bound to a Liberty BASIC purchase? The ide is the ide whether enhanced or not and matters less. But the core scripting simplicity is Liberty BASIC's power. You have not achieved that with BBC despite its computational advantage.

Carl is constrained by Smalltalk, you have broken those constraints. Its just a pity and our loss that you could not work together.

Or could you?
Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Richard Russell on Mar 26th, 2014, 9:44pm

on Mar 26th, 2014, 7:33pm, Rod wrote:
Currently it is positioned as a free alternative to Liberty BASIC, so destroying his market and intellectual property.

Please don't suggest that I have violated Carl's Intellectual Property Rights, because that it totally untrue. No IPR exists in respect of the semantics or syntax of a programming language, only in its implementation. Anybody is free to write a clone of a language - consider how many implementations of BBC BASIC by different authors there are!

But it's important to me not only to adhere to the letter of the law but also the spirit. That's why, before releasing LBB, I consulted with Carl (and other senior LB enthusiasts) to make sure what I was proposing would be acceptable. It was as a direct result of that consultation that I (1) changed the name of my implementation from Liberty BASIC Booster to LB Booster and (2) agreed to include in the LBB documentation the comment "LB Booster is Freeware; you are encouraged to purchase the full version of Liberty Basic on which to develop, test and debug your programs prior to 'boosting' them".

Carl has subsequently stated publicly that: "LBB is a legitimate artifact. Feel free to use it if it suits your needs". If he was in any way unhappy he could have contacted me directly, but he has not done so. He could also have contacted me if he was interested in some kind of cooperation, but again he hasn't.

If Carl is finding that his market is declining then there are many possible reasons other than the existence of LBB. For example his failure to fix the large number of bugs in LB4, despite them having long been known and documented; his failure to address the security vulnerabilities in TKN files, which were drawn to his attention years ago; and then of course there is (or more to the point isn't!) LB5....

Richard.

Re: Winding down LBB
Post by Jack Kelly on Jan 20th, 2015, 10:32am

Richard,
I'm happy to be a new member of the LBB forum. Who could refuse your kind invitation? And most importantly, I have decided that LBB will be my BASIC of choice going forward. I will develop and maintain my programs entirely in LBB. Your work has added brilliance to a somewhat ordinary product. But Just Basic found an important niche among amateur programmers like myself. Years ago I was very happy with GW Basic and the first versions of MS Visual Basic, but these are now history for many reasons. JB was the best that we were left with, and I do like working with it. I don’t need complicated GUI development screens, network security, or enterprise features. Text based coding is the essence of BASIC programming and JB did the job. LBB does it better.

I have an idea for promoting LBB. Have you ever heard of Khan Academy? It's a sophisticated Web site tied to a hugeYouTube channel with thousands of short lectures on primarily math and science. The founder, Sal Khan, is a brilliant entrepreneur and educator. He has received millions of dollars of funding from the Gates Foundation, Google, and many others. But most importantly, Sal, like us, is a self-professed “lover of code.” KA has a Computer Science section that has an on-line Java interpreter for beginners. They were recently a sponsor of the international “Hour of Code” where young people were encouraged to try their hand at programming. Sal has created lectures on Python, and has enlisted people to lecture on HTML and CSS . But I think he should be teaching BASIC. Perhaps you and Sal might have something to talk about, by way of using LBB and promoting it at the same time. His staff probably screens his e-mail, but maybe they would pass on one from you. It’s worth a try, don't you think?
salman@khanacademy.org

I suppose I'm another one of your old school users, but at least I'm not using GoSub anymore. I feel like a part of computer history. Dennis Ritchie was a year ahead of me in high school in New Jersey, before he went on to Harvard. He worked at Bell Labs where he developed the C language and much of Unix. Sadly, he chose to end his life a couple of years ago. Sir Michael Bloomberg was in my class at Johns Hopkins. He knew everyone by first name, and was class president for several years.

In 1964 I visited Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, just when John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz released the first version of BASIC. This created much excitement on the campus, and was a source of pride for the entire community. Kemeny went on to become the president of Dartmouth for many years.

In the Air Force during the late 60s I was a maintenance technician on the Hound Dog missile inertial guidance system. The heart of the system was the stable platform with its gyros and accelerometers, but the brain of the system was the digital computer. I can only describe it as a PC made from transistors and discreet components. Its only memory was a small hard disk. I had no idea how it worked, but I could program it with machine language code. That was the start of my interest in computers.

During the 70s I worked as a maintenance technician for Burroughs, during the age of large “time sharing” mainframe computers. The B5500 ran an operating system called MCP (Master Control Program). It was a thing of beauty -- simple, elegant, innovative, and way ahead of its time -- created by one individual, I believe. Unfortunately the company could not compete well against IBM, and they never had much of a market share. I worked on small second generation computers that ran specialized back office banking operations. Today’s PCs could run circles around them.

Lately I've been working on a tutorial for BASIC programming. I have eight grandchildren approaching their teens, and I'm hopeful that at least one of them will become a lover of code, too.