Talk:FreeBASIC
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[edit] Documentation
The documentation that comes with the download is minimal (nearly useless). Sort of assumes you are currently very familiar with a previous version of BASIC such as QuickBASIC. Partly made up for by large number of small example programs included.
The FB Wiki tries to provide documentation.
A good complete Table of Contents appears at: http://www.freebasic.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=DocToc
A complete Alphabetical Keywords List: http://www.freebasic.net/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=CatPgFullIndex
This is a good resource, but does not make up for lack of a good set of downloadable documentation.
Next time, check the downloads section: http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/fbc/FB-manual-chm-19.may.2006.zip?download Both wikis are community efforts, just complaining won't make they better, feel free to contribute.
I love freebasic! It is great. I use it all the time now.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.159.247.211 (talk • contribs) 03:08, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
How do you use c:\freebasic\fbc -lang qb *.bas? I get error 3 - wants line to end at *.bas. Where can you get the older versions - pre 18.2? The older version was extremely fast, at least on the tests versus qbasic, qb71, powerbasic etc. - maybe 18.2 is even faster but I can't get it to run.Thanks
I found my problem - either move the *.bas file to the freebasic directory or operate from the *.bas directory - my above example was trying to operate from the freebasic directory using a file from another directory. Got it to work ( reading the manual works too, but it is awfully big. Input and output seem very slow - number crunching is extremely fast. Depending on what I am doing either freebasic or firstbas win the race. Is there a "good" comparison of basic compiler speed results under different conditions ( ie number crunching, in/output, nesting, etc) hopefully not put out by the marketing divisions. On some source code I have had the old qbasic give the "best" compilers a run for the money. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.105.80.141 (talk) 12:40, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
- FreeBASIC does indeed do pretty well for a "free" compiler, but it's not a fully-optimizing compiler (according to the authors). Still, it's pretty good. I don't know of any official benchmarks, but maybe you can hack/tweak this one. Armslurp (talk) 01:26, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Why is the page flagged as needing citations/references?
As a FreeBASIC user I am rather confused as to the flagging that has been in effect since February 2008 for a supposed lack of references or citations. It should be noted that FreeBASIC is not the only free, open source program which is distributed solely via internet and therefore has little or no attention in mainstream public media. FreeBASIC, like many such programs, is barely known offline. Thus, any and all citations will come from the internet. The links provided should be enough, I should think.
In case anyone is not convinced, let me draw your attention to the entries for several programs in a similar position as FreeBASIC. First is gparted; there are only two sources cited there, one of which is to the gparted LiveCD site itself and the other to a site entirely unrelated to the software gparted. The entry for FreeBASIC has more links and they are more relevant (even if they are mostly if not all directly from FreeBASICs own pages). The second example is the page for QuickBASIC, a language FreeBASIC drew on heavily as far as syntax and design. The page for QuickBASIC only has two citations and they are both from the site of the creators of QuickBASIC - Microsoft's Knowledge Base!
Given these two examples alone, I would say that in all fairness either the pages for QuickBASIC and gparted should also be given the same flagging or the flagging should be removed from the page of FreeBASIC. I personally think the latter is more reasonable, given that there is a lot of internet content that will never be described in any "reliable third-party" publications, which does not make it any less worthy of coverage in Wikipedia (and without the annoying and meaningless flagging of the supposed lack of citations).
I have removed the flagging and ask that it not be reinstated until some reasonable discussion has taken place.
Notthecheatr (talk) 23:50, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree RealWorldExperience (talk) 20:02, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
I think it's only a problem if Wikipedia:Verifiability is not given, but to me all the current info seems easily verifiable. --Allefant (talk) 20:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
