Shoutbox

If BASIC isnt a real language then i dont know what is Its BASIC that i learnt as a kid and loved. It didnt have as much power as C and C++ (duh!!!) but its absolutely awesome imo. Really fun to learn when you are a kid and you are starting to learn how to operate your pc (basics which we learn as kids)

I only knew C and C++ and i dont find learning JScript that tough tbh. Its actually easier if anything Plus JScript isnt as strict as something like C and C++ as for the rules. And as Volv said

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Originally posted by Volv
For some reason I dont think anything said here by anyone will change the fact that Plus! uses JScript, so get over it and stop arguing about trivial matters...

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
TB, if you know as much of Basic as you know about C++ (and the likes, etc) I wouldnt be discussing this with you or wouldn't go deeper in on it. But the fact that I know you simply don't "like" Basic doesn't make Basic crap though.  I deeply, very deeply, respect your knoweldge of C++, but for Basic I think you base your judgement a bit too much on "liking the syntax or not"  than anything else...

VBscript can handle OO just as well as JScript does. As I said VBscript IS more powerfull than JScript and DOES know far more possebilities, types, etc... There is absolutely nothing 'dirty' about it. In fact, it's the opposite!! Todo in JScript what you can do in VBScript you actually need to revert to 'dirty' workarounds in JScript.

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OO? Prove it... We're not talking VB here, as I know VB.NET has OO, yet I'm pretty certain VBScript does not.
I stand corrected, VBScript does have a class keyword since version 5.0.

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Also, the passing by reference in JScript for objects is even a 'dirty hack' on its own as it is in fact NOT passing objects by reference iether. But for convenience and easyness to explain it is said it does, as it is hard to explain otherwise. There are papers written about this and explaining this in very much details with technical details "from under the hood" and by those who actually were involved in creating the language and stuff. If I find those links again I'll post them.

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It's not passing objects by reference indeed, but it does exactly what you'd want it to. So if you can "create" your own ByRef methods, then why say you can't ?
And don't say that'd be a dirty hack. Saying that is a dirty hack, would be like saying that every function you write is a dirty hack...

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
I would never recommend VBScript, VB, or BASIC for any other purpose than quick and dirty "programs" that have no need to be reliable whatsoever.

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which is extremely and so typical to say from someone who swears with C++ like languages. (and I know you now gonna reply with "and it is so typical to say that from someone who programs in Basic" ). Basic IS reliable, Basic IS good to learn programming as it has a very easy learning curve, Basic IS not dirty programming...

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For very quick and small programs, BASIC might be reliable. It is, however, extremely difficult to keep a big program in BASIC reliable.

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Again, it is NOT the language used which makes someone a bad habit programmer at all!

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It's not the language that makes you a bad programmer, but BASIC tends to compliment bad programming styles.

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Note: I'm defending Basic in general, yes. But that does NOT mean I don't like C++ or any other language for that matter. I'm not the one who is pinned strait into a certain programming language and thinking all the rest is BS. It is not because a syntax is different in a certain language than what you're used to that the language is crap.

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Are you saying that I pinned right to C++? That's bullshit. I've used QuickBasic for ages, did a few years of Visual Basic, and moved on to C++. I do however still use other languages, like Java (mobile phone development), PHP (web development), and JavaScript (client-side web development), and if necesarry I can pick up any language I want in a matter of weeks.
I'm not saying "the rest" is BS, that's not true. There's a lot of good programming languages around... BASIC is definitaly not one of them though!

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This is exactly the same as all those "C++ is holy"-people proclaiming for years that Basic doesn't even know pointers. This simply shows that those people don't even know what they're talking about as variable handling in basic is exactly based upon pointers and each and every variable you creat in basic IS actually a pointer...

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DWORD dwBlah=0xBAADF00D;
BYTE *pBlah=(BYTE*)&dwBlah;
printf("A part of the number is: %d\r\n",pBlah[1]);

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This might not be a very useful example of pointers, yet I am sure that you can't just do that in VB.
As for VB vars being pointers, that's bullshit. They might indeed just be pieces of memory, as with any program, yet they're not pointers. Each and every variable in VB is a VARIANT type. No more, no less. They *can* contain pointers, yet VB will never treat them as such.

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You have every right to not like a language (aka the syntax), of course, that speaks for itself. But that doesn't mean that the language is crap, dirty, unreliable or whatever.

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I like the language. It's simple and fun. But that still does not mean it's reliable and useful. You might be able to write a program in BASIC, yet I don't think you can call yourself a real programmer if you can only write programs in BASIC.

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It is not because Basic is called "basic" that it is a "basic" language or it is not that the "b" stand for "beginners" that it is nothing worth. The very first basica versions might have been, but since then it has evolved into lots more and is far away from the stuff it was 30 years ago.

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Originally posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC_programming_language

BASIC (an acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code[1])

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The ONLY thing you can say about Basic is that it, because of all the "blackmaking", it also attracts script-kiddies who proclaim themselfs "experts". And it are those crap codes from those script kiddies which makes Basic having a bad name. However that it not the fault of the language or its syntax but the fault of those stupid kiddies who think they can program when they can popup a box on the screen. This doesn't mean the language is crap, it means those kiddies are crap.

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You've got loads of scriptkiddies like that in C++ that can write a simple MessageBox and think they're a C++ master. Hell, every language has those. But I don't see anyone calling C++ names ?
And I know why, because it's a respected programming language that has proven to be very very useful, in contrast to VB.

I believe that any scripting language is as good as the next depending on your skill level, what you are using it for and your knowledge from the past.  You cannot say that something is not worth learning because everything that you learn adds to wht you can do in the future.  It is not for you to say that a scripting language is not worthy of being learnt because all are as they are all stepping stones so people can make great programs in the future.

The likes of pascal is quite useless as there is very little you can do with it, but it is also very easy to learn from and be able to use the understanding you get from using it to then help with the next language you learn.  The more languages you learn the more you can do with your programming and the more efficient and reliable programs your can make based upon your judgement of the most appropriate scripting language you choose.

I for one find the use of JScript in the scripting engine of MP!L to be quite useful (remember this is what the actual thread is about).  JScript might not be the best choice in some people's eyes, in other's it is a great choice, everyone is different and finds the difficulty to use something different along with the potential that each language holds.  Without this difference of ideals what is the point of different scipting languages?

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Originally posted by markee
The likes of pascal is quite useless as there is very little you can do with it

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uhh, you could learn delphi...

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Originally posted by ShawnZ

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Originally posted by markee
The likes of pascal is quite useless as there is very little you can do with it

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uhh, you could learn delphi...

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True but I was trying to make a point   I learnt pascal in school and quit my computing classes before we moved on to delphi (didn't work with my timetable and what I wanted).  But the knowledge of pascal has helped me with using JScript for te scripting in MP!L and gave me confidence in programming and trying new things with things like this.  I might not be as good as CookieRevised or TB (or will be anywhere near as good) but both of them, just like anyone else, have to relise that jst because you like something and see it's use as the epitome of programming languages doesn't mean it is (and nor does that mean that it isn't either), every program serves a purpose, if it is to help beginners get  feel for programming then that's as useful, if not more useful than the likes of VB or C++ or whatever else someone likes to use for their whiz-bang programs.

Well, in my opinion (which doesn't really matter) the vb keywords are too long for writing code. That might be because i'm used to typing with brackets and semicolons, but for me, "if(true){return;}else{return;}" is more useful than "If True Then ...".
Some people might say it's more readable, but imo, the syntax of the other programming languages are more readable than vb once you get used to it.

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
They might indeed just be pieces of memory, as with any program, yet they're not pointers. Each and every variable in VB is a VARIANT type. No more, no less.

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erm, that's absolutely not true.

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Originally posted by CookieRevised

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
They might indeed just be pieces of memory, as with any program, yet they're not pointers. Each and every variable in VB is a VARIANT type. No more, no less.

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erm, that's absolutely not true.

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In WScript (which is VBScript and JScript together), everything is the VARIANT type... honestly

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
I like the language. It's simple and fun. But that still does not mean it's reliable and useful.

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It's as much reliable as any other language (including C++), even for big programs or whatever.

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer

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Originally posted by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC_programming_language

BASIC (an acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code[1])

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That's exactly what I said: "It's not  because the "b" stands for "beginners" that the language is ... yadda yadda..."

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
You've got loads of scriptkiddies like that in C++ that can write a simple MessageBox and think they're a C++ master. Hell, every language has those. But I don't see anyone calling C++ names ?
And I know why, because it's a respected programming language that has proven to be very very useful, in contrast to VB.

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It's because VB programmers respect C++, yes, UNLIKE C++ programmers respecting VB (and that is what I mean with people like you are "pinned" to C++ or the likes. They don't respect it based upon wrong stuff and their OWN personal likings as they think C++ is holy and uberleet and the rest is minor (simply because it is a different syntax or because they actually do not know it as good as they know c++). In fact, this is just the same as someone not respecting another culture because he/she thinks its "minor"...

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer

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Originally posted by CookieRevised

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
They might indeed just be pieces of memory, as with any program, yet they're not pointers. Each and every variable in VB is a VARIANT type. No more, no less.

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erm, that's absolutely not true.

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In WScript (which is VBScript and JScript together), everything is the VARIANT type... honestly

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obviously I'm talking about VB...

And why would you say an argument like "vbscript doesn't even know true types, except variants" when this is just the same in jscript??? In other words, don't try to talk you out of this You even stated "VB" yourself, not "vbscript".

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Originally posted by TheGeek
Well, in my opinion (which doesn't really matter) the vb keywords are too long for writing code. That might be because i'm used to typing with brackets and semicolons, but for me, "if(true){return;}else{return;}" is more useful than "If True Then ...".
Some people might say it's more readable, but imo, the syntax of the other programming languages are more readable than vb once you get used to it.

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That's very true (wow, and this comming from a VB programmer ).... the thing is Basic was developed with exactly that in mind, to create a syntax which is 'readable' and close resembles english sentences/words to untrained people so it is more open to start programming in it than another language.

The thing with this is; some people think that basic is minor, unreliable and what not because of this. It's simply the syntax, even if it was in Chinese the language would still work the same. a logic and comparisson will still be a logic and comparisson, just as in C++, Cobol, Fortran, Pascal, Delphi, whatever.

And because it is more 'readable' to an untrained and first beginning programmer, it is much more easy to actualy learn to program in VB for example than it is in C++; the learning curve is less steep.

99,9999999% of all arguments comming from people who mainly program in C++ have to do with exactly that; Because basic was first meant for 'beginners' they think it's shit, unreliable and whatever. They almost never base their findings on facts but on things they believe or hear from others. Look at the vbscript vs. jscript arguments, nice example. Even the fact that vbscript is actually more powerfull and can do more things than jscript doesn't matter for them; they don't like the syntax or it has the word "basic" in it so it is a 'worse' language. And that has been so pinned in to them "basic is evil" that they even don't see what it is actually capable of; it is automatically judged as "bad'.

I'm not going to respond to the whole post, too tired for that. Most of it is just repeating what you said earlier, seemingly even without looking what I said.

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Originally posted by CookieRevised
That's exactly what I said: "It's not  because the "b" stands for "beginners" that the language is ... yadda yadda..."

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That's not what you said. Re-read your own post, or get a refresher coursein the english language.

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It's because VB programmers respect C++, yes, UNLIKE C++ programmers respecting VB

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Oh come on, with all the scriptkiddies (which you yourself acknowledged to exist), there's bound to be loads of em that would like to call C++ crap and such. The main reason people don't mess with C++ is because they know that their OS and their most used applications are very likely to be written in C++.

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(and that is what I mean with people like you are "pinned" to C++ or the likes. They don't respect it based upon wrong stuff and their OWN personal likings as they think C++ is holy and uberleet and the rest is minor (simply because it is a different syntax or because they actually do not know it as good as they know c++). In fact, this is just the same as someone not respecting another culture because he/she thinks its "minor"...

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Yeah, who would think there's a difference between High-Level programming languages and Low-Level programming languages anyway?
Yeah, sure just the syntax, ofcourse.... dream on...
I mostly respect what you say, but saying that the only difference between VB and C++ is the syntax is plain bullshit.

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer

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Originally posted by CookieRevised

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Originally posted by TheBlasphemer
They might indeed just be pieces of memory, as with any program, yet they're not pointers. Each and every variable in VB is a VARIANT type. No more, no less.

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erm, that's absolutely not true.

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In WScript (which is VBScript and JScript together), everything is the VARIANT type... honestly

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obviously I'm talking about VB...

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Internally the VB Virtual Machine just uses VARIANTs and BSTRs, nothing more nothing less.

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And why would you say an argument like "vbscript doesn't even know true types, except variants" when this is just the same in jscript??? In other words, don't try to talk you out of this You even stated "VB" yourself, not "vbscript".

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I didn't say VBScript doesn't know true types, because apparently it does. I said that internally VBScript uses the VARIANT data-type, and as such it does *not* deal with pointers.


Anyway, I'm sick and tired of this discussion. You can just keep believing you're right and you can keep repeating the same bullshit over and over again, I'm just no longer going to bother replying to it again.