SS24766%UAFSYSB.BITNET@umrvmb.umr.edu (Bryan Stover) (05/17/89)
Just finished learning some BASIC programming using GW-BASIC on IBM clones here at the "U". Am on the way to becoming something other than just a user-abuser. (What, of course, is unknown!) Have played with AmigaBASIC enough to loathe it. What now? Using TurboBASIC on the clones was so nifty that I yearn to use a "better BASIC" on Ami! Can anyone recommend, from personal experience, either GFA BASIC or HiSoft BASIC? Any reason to prefer one to the other? Some years ago a mentor advised that, in order to become a good photographer, you should choose one type of film, paper, and film and paper developers and use them until you "knew" intuitively how to manifest your vision. That one type of BASIC is what I'm looking for now. Will gladly summarise to the net if appropriate. Many thanks for the help! Cheers! Bryan WWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwWWWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwWWWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwWWWWWWWWWwwwwwwwwwWWWWWWWW Bitnet:SS24766@UAFSYSB PLink:BStover GEnie:XTX28334 Voice:(501)442-0583 MMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMM
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (05/17/89)
In <15594@louie.udel.EDU>, SS24766%UAFSYSB.BITNET@umrvmb.umr.edu (Bryan Stover) writes: > Just finished learning some BASIC programming using GW-BASIC on IBM clones > here at the "U". Am on the way to becoming something other than just a > user-abuser. (What, of course, is unknown!) Have played with AmigaBASIC > enough to loathe it. What now? You are, of course, now permanently warped beyond redemtion :-). If you hate Amigabasic, you probably won't be happy with any other Basic. On the other hand, if you hate Amigabasic's user interface and bugs, you could be happy with a sharp stick and wet clay tablets. > Using TurboBASIC on the clones was so nifty that I yearn to use a "better > BASIC" on Ami! > > Can anyone recommend, from personal experience, either GFA BASIC or HiSoft > BASIC? Any reason to prefer one to the other? HiSoft is an excellent product. It compiles quickly, produces pretty lean code for Basic, and has a good user interface. It is a compiler only. I haven't seen GFA Basic. -larry -- - Don't tell me what kind of a day to have! - +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca or uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com (05/18/89)
Get Hi-Soft Basic! It is like AmigaBasic but compiled. You can load in a Amiga-
Basic program and it will compile. It has a nice editor, is not slow like ABasi
and does not guru. There was a review of it in Antic's latest issue of Amiga
plus. You should check it out.
- Doug -
Doug_B_Erdely@Portal.Cup.Combarrett@ektools.UUCP (Chris Barrett) (05/19/89)
In article <18480@cup.portal.com> Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com writes: >Get Hi-Soft Basic! It is like AmigaBasic but compiled. You can load in a Amiga- What about sizes of compiled files, How does it compare to the size of the source? Speed of compilation? Speed of execution? How does it compare to AC-Basic compiler? Inquiring minds want to know! Thanks for any info. Chris barrett@ektools ( Chris Barrett ) rochester!kodak!ektools!barrett -- barrett@ektools ( Chris Barrett ) rochester!kodak!ektools!barrett
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (05/20/89)
In <1900@ektools.UUCP>, barrett@ektools.UUCP (Chris Barrett) writes: > In article <18480@cup.portal.com> Doug_B_Erdely@cup.portal.com writes: >> Get Hi-Soft Basic! It is like AmigaBasic but compiled. You can load in a Amiga- > > What about sizes of compiled files, How does it compare to the size of the > source? Speed of compilation? Speed of execution? How does it compare to > AC-Basic compiler? Inquiring minds want to know! Thanks for any info. Compiled files are very reasonable in size. There is an option that allows you to compile to two types of code, one that uses the supplied hisoftbasic.library, and one that compiles to standalone executable requiring no other modules/files to run. The type that needs the library builds the smallest executable (see below) Here are some stats for you. The first is a non-trivial program that does a sort of a pretty-print of a file captured from a Compuserve COnference. It checks the lengths of the names of the participants and formats lines accordingly, removing the Compuserve specific room number, parens, job numbers, or user ID numbers, allows selective inclusion or exclusion of participants by name, inclusion or exclusion of private messages received, and inclusion or exclusion of 'status' resukts, showing who is on-line at the time. I wrote it as an excercise to see how the language was, and it turned out to be useful (I know of one fellow who saves himself an hour or two every week with it). Calculations.bas is the (probably older version) Byte benchmark of the same name. Code follows: -------------------------- REM $EVENT ON REM $OPTION B+,G-,N+,L-,Y+ defint i nr = 5000 a = 2.71828 b = 3.14159 c = 1 for i = 1 to nr c = c*a c = c*b c = c/a c = c/b next i print "error ="; c-1 ------------------------- Stats: ------ cofilter.bas 4470 bytes - (about 190 lines of code) calculations.bas 173 bytes - (see code above) Compiled to run with hisoftbasic.library ---------------------------------------- cofilter 6148 bytes - Time to compile: 9.32 seconds calculations 712 bytes - Time to compile: 3.46 seconds NOTE: hisoftbasic.library - 46672 bytes (required at run time for above) Compiled standalone ------------------- calculations 12440 bytes - Time to compile: 4.14 seconds cofilter 23972 bytes - Time to compile: 10.56 seconds Runtime speed ------------- Calculations: 3.58 seconds, error =-1.192093E-07 Cofilter: N/A NOTE: May '85 True Basic review gave the following times and results (on IBM PC) True Basic: 19.7 seconds, error = -4.5830006457E-13 PC-Basic: 69.2 seconds, error = -1.788139E-07 BetterBASIC: 91.3 seconds, error = 0 (uses BCD internally) Turbo Pascal: 82.6 seconds, error = -1.3384124031E-08 ------------------------------ I have not used AC-Basic, since I was completely turned off by the minimum standalone code size, which includes the entire run-time library, whether you need it or not. I think this is a great package, even if I don't like Basic much. -larry -- - Don't tell me what kind of a day to have! - +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca or uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
agnus@nadia.UUCP (Matthias Zepf) (05/22/89)
In article <2425@van-bc.UUCP> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes: >In <15594@louie.udel.EDU>, SS24766%UAFSYSB.BITNET@umrvmb.umr.edu (Bryan Stover) writes: >> Can anyone recommend, from personal experience, either GFA BASIC or HiSoft >> BASIC? Any reason to prefer one to the other? >HiSoft is an excellent product. It compiles quickly, produces pretty lean code >for Basic, and has a good user interface. It is a compiler only. I haven't seen >GFA Basic. GFA Basic is a very good product. It isn't a basic compiler, but it is fast like one. The running speed is in some cases faster than the speed of programs written in Aztec or Lattice C. The syntax of GFA Basic is not compatible with Basica/GW-Basic/AmigaBasic but GFA Basic has it own very fast editor with syntax checking an automatically structured programming. It needs only one look at GFA Basic to see that it is the BEST basic one can get! Greets Matthias (owner of GFA Basic with seriell number under 1000) P.S: The current GFA Basic release is V3.03. -- +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Matthias "Agnus" Zepf ...!uunet!unido!gtc!aragon!amylnd!agnus | | D-7250 Leonberg, West Germany AMIGA made it possible FIRST! | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+
lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) (05/23/89)
In <476@nadia.UUCP>, agnus@nadia.UUCP (Matthias Zepf) writes: >GFA Basic is a very good product. It isn't a basic compiler, but it is >fast like one. The running speed is in some cases faster than the speed >of programs written in Aztec or Lattice C. The syntax of GFA Basic is >not compatible with Basica/GW-Basic/AmigaBasic but GFA Basic has it >own very fast editor with syntax checking an automatically structured >programming. It needs only one look at GFA Basic to see that it is the >BEST basic one can get! Does GFA basic allow you to use another editor/environment or does it force you into theirs? I don't mind integrated environments, as long as they are the ones I choose to have. I don't use Basic as a rule, and would rather that any program I write (or that anyone else writes and I find useful), be standalone, so that I don't have to carry the baggage of the interpreter. If I used Basic more, I would probably not mind (like with ARexx, which is called for at least 25% of all commands I type) I guess 'best' is relative to your own needs, nicht wahr? -larry -- - Don't tell me what kind of a day to have! - +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ | // Larry Phillips | | \X/ lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca or uunet!van-bc!lpami!lphillips | | COMPUSERVE: 76703,4322 | +----------------------------------------------------------------------+