Talk:List of BASIC dialects by platform
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[edit] Big changes
Okay, I just finished some major clean-up and re-work of this article. I created some new groupings. I created/modified higher level groupings of "Platform", "Category", "Multiple platforms", and "Other, and grouped the groups in those. I see this page as better thought of as "BASIC dialects in useful groups" rather then strictly by platform. I sorted the groups within the larger groups. I did some random cleanup. However, I'm still not happy with this.
Remaining problems:
- Manual sync required with List of BASIC dialects
- It is a giant unwieldy messy ugly pile of links and random info
- Many dialects do not fit neatly into any category, or fit into multiple categories
- The multi-platform list will tend to grow without bound
The first one is the big one. It's already out of sync and is only going to get worse. Information duplication is bad, bad, *BAD* when it comes to things like this. I'm also concerned about the mess aspect. Simple list pages are one thing (they are basically like a table of contents), but this has random info scattered through-out. That makes the sync problem worse, and also means what should be a simple list is now a useful reference page as well. The other two are minor in comparison, but still annoying.
I'm thinking we would be a lot better off creating subcategories of the "BASIC dialects" category for major platforms, categories, etc., and filing everything into those categories. That way, the MediaWiki category system will manage it all for us. Turn both list articles into redirects to the top-level category page and be done with it.
The one drawback I see to using categories that there are a lot of minor dialects without their own articles. Those not good stub canidates, since they are unlikely to have significant information contributed any time soon. Perhaps we could create a "List of minor BASIC dialects" or some-such thing to hold all of those?
Comments, suggestions, concerns?
--DragonHawk 03:31, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] AMOS BASIC, STOS BASIC ancestry
The article previously called both AMOS BASIC and STOS BASIC ancestors of each other. Obviously this isn't true. It's STOS that came first and AMOS that came after that. — JIP | Talk 15:55, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- You're right. It must have crept in when I translated from the German version of this page. I actually used to use STOS BASIC myself so should have spotted it. I've removed the HTML comment next to the AMOS BASIC entry.
[edit] Combined multi-platform and specific platform dialect listing
I wonder whether we should repeat multi-platform dialects under each affected platform, so that people looking for a specific platform's available dialects won't be forced to look up those in the multi-platform listing after first having checked the platform in question. Suggested format for the repeated entries: "<dialect> (multi-platform; also <additional plf> [ , additional plf ] )". Any comments? --Wernher 02:09, 30 October 2005 (UTC)
- We could do * ''<dialect>: See: 'List of BASIC dialects for multiple platforms''' (this is similar to the way alternative names are handled in List of BASIC dialects). Listing the additional platforms in the entry does not have much point if they are already listed in the entry under List of BASIC dialects for multiple platforms, and if a new platform is added, it would mean having to find all the references and update them too. However, adding there references could quickly clutter up some of the single-platform lists - especially the ones for Windows and Linux. Ae-a 02:30, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
One thing that might help is limiting the multi-platform category to dialects explictly designed to be multiplatform (and not those that just happen to have a couple of ports). We can look for other categories. For example, the DEC BASIC stuff runs on a number of platforms, but they're all fundamentally *DEC BASIC*. Likewise, Rocky Mountain BASIC has been implemented by multiple companies on multiple platforms, but it's all basically the same HP derivied BASIC. As far as people looking for a particular platform, they should be able to text-search for the platform name and find it, no? --DragonHawk 03:38, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] DLA BASIC
dla basic -- The only stuff about "dla basic" I'm able to find by googling is some Polish web pages listing the phrase in e.g. VIC-20 & C64 specifications of ROM allocation; after checking with a Polish-English dictionary, I found that "dla" means "for", indicating that the phrase just means "for basic"... So please give some docs to prove "dla basic" existence. It is also mentioned on the resume at http://www.inspiredidea.com/home/resume/
The above was stuck into an HTML comment block in the text, unsigned. --DragonHawk 02:16, 9 November 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Recommend a freeware Basic?
Thanks for all hard work done on this article. But could there be a list of freeware basics, plus, say, a table of what the various can do, what their features are?
I for example am looking for a freeware Basic that could interrogate online databases using GET and PUT. The only language I am comfortable with is GW BASIC so it has to be simple if possible. Any suggestions please?
[edit] Correction
Sorry I meant POST, not PUT.
