Hello World

帰ってきた VB ? ～ Small Basic

biac のそれさえもおそらくは幸せな日々@nifty — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 07:37:39 GMT

It's cool. I think Small Basic is the best for the novice who begin to learn programming. 昔の VB2 みたいに、早くてお手軽、だといいなぁ。 f(^^; ・ blog : SMALL BASIC・ DevLabs : Sma

re: Hello World

int19h — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:33:08 GMT

The idea is good. QBasic was a decent teaching tool, and a good replacement is sorely needed. However, it is, in my opinion, a big mistake to try to make the most "basic" language object-oriented, or even to mention things such as "classes" and "objects". Before getting there, one has to learn the ropes of algorithms, and for that, all that's needed is a good old procedural-style language with simple but easy-to-use input/output facilities (the original BASIC PRINT and INPUT were perfect for that), and preferrably with some easily accessible graphical primitives (since a lot of basic stuff - loops, recursion, functions etc - are much easier to demonstrate on apps drawing some simple graphics).

I mean, a BASIC that cannot run this?

PRINT "Hello, world!"

Come on...

By the way, error reporting is also confusing. Say, I write this:

TextWindow.WriteLine "Hello, world!"

I expected it to tell me that I'm missing an opening parenthesis after WriteLine. Instead, I get this gem:

1,21: Unrecognized statement encountered

1,11: Cannot find property "WriteLine" in Type "TextWindow"

Oh-kay... so which statement was unrecognized? There are no line/column numbers in the editor, so finding that 21 is gonna be tricky. But alright, I count characters myself, and my cursor ends up at the space character. Huh?

The second error message is even more baffling for a beginner. What's a "property", and why did it say that it couldn't find one when I didn't ask it to look for one?

I am nitpicking here, of course... but it must be understood that a learning tool has to have particularly good error reporting in the compiler, trying to not just say what went wrong and where, but also why, and what should be done to make it right, to the extent it is possible to detect it (maybe with some heuristics even).

re: Hello World

int19h — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 09:35:40 GMT

Oh, and while I was trying to figure out how the arrays are supposed to work, this single-liner had just crashed with an exception (and a stock Win32 error reporting window) for me:

Array.SetValue(a, 1, "123")

re: Hello World

vijayeg — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:05:04 GMT

Thanks int19h. These are great suggestions that we'll incorporate into the next releases.

The Array.SetValue crash is a bug. If "a" is a variable and doesn't have a name already set, it crashes. Try giving the array a name:

Array.SetValue("myarray", 1, "123")

re: Hello World

Basic Sux !!!!! — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:31:42 GMT

Yeah coool ! Another shity buggy microsoft product , Thank you . The world will become better with that **** .

re: Hello World

Patrik — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:01:59 GMT

This is an excellent way for kids to learn how to program. A Very good initiative! Keep up the good work.

re: Hello World

MIke Moore — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 07:27:55 GMT

This looks an alot like Hackety Hack, but it wasn't mentioned. Were you influenced by Hackety Hack? Or is it purely a coincidence?

http://hacketyhack.net/

re: Hello World

Linda — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 10:55:24 GMT

Thanks for your work. This looks great. My son (8) has already taken off with this! I would love to eventually see documentation with a table-of-contents or in a tutorial type format. Also, searchable help files within the program would be great.

re: Hello World

Sat, 25 Oct 2008 14:52:26 GMT

Thank you and Microsoft for keeping the Basic tradition. Don't listen to the naysayers, most of them are busy learning fad languages such as Lisp and Ruby without ever thinking about producing actual, useful code. QBasic was the source of my fun back in the days and so will SmallBasic be for the new generation. Professional programmers tend to forget how hard it can be to get into programming when you need to learn all kind of concepts like classes and types. Basic is about learning how to write nice algorithms first.

Heck, I'm a C# programmer and I'm thinking of trying Small Basic too because the environment seems nice enough to do quick prototyping of algorithms and ideas.

New and Notable 274

Sam Gentile If (DeveloperTask==Communication && OS==Windows) — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 19:24:27 GMT

Haven't wrote much because I am saving up for a big post on Castle Active Record, which I am just

re: Hello World

Christian Jacob — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 19:20:32 GMT

I believe, Small Basic is an awesome approach and it is simply great that Microsoft allows you guys to do something like that and even publish it.

Also, it took me less than one hour to implement Conway's Game of Life with it. That was really fun. ;-)

I published the code in the Small Basic forum by the way.

re: Hello World

Lars — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:10:47 GMT

BlitzBasic is what I always recommend

re: Hello World

int19h — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:17:18 GMT

By the way, regarding arrays - I really think that they should be first-class. They're too fundamental to a lot of important algorithms to lift to a library with GetValue/SetValue calls.

re: Hello World

vijayeg — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 17:42:04 GMT

That is good feedback, int19h. I'll take a note of this feature request in our bug database and promise to work on it. However, I can't promise that it will end up in the product.

re: Hello World

yet-another — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:05:41 GMT

why another language? totally useless effort!!!!! why is msft spending valuable resources on thse useless projects...

re: Hello World

int19h — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:59:17 GMT

Different languages serve different purposes. You can use C# or VB.NET as a teaching ("first") language, but it's overcomplicated for that purpose.

re: Hello World

Donal - Dublin Ireland — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 00:39:41 GMT

Vijayeg,

Thanks – Small Basic is a great idea. Your introduction summarises exactly where I've been with my kids and I am introducing it to them now.

P.S. – I’m CEO of an MS partner – BizTalk and stuff like that and I’m sure in a couple of years time we will come across a customer application, (financial services industry maybe?), written in house in Small Basic – it’ll be the libraries fault – but hey that’s life.

Microsoft releases yet another programming language - Introducing Small Basic

Eric and the .NET Framework — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:22:30 GMT

Wow. I love this. This brings back all the great memories I had (even of the bugs) of how I first got

Microsoft releases yet another programming language - Introducing Small Basic

Goto 100 - Development with Visual Basic — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:24:44 GMT

Wow. I love this. This brings back all the great memories I had (even of the bugs) of how I first got

re: Hello World

James — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:10:39 GMT

Will this make it to codeplex dude? I'd love to see your implementation!

re: Hello World

Forever — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 19:40:10 GMT

While ("True")

...

EndWhile

What? How do you explain this to a newbie? Better to have a Forever construct.

re: Hello World

Chris Lomax — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:59:49 GMT

I think its great that Microsoft have released a great little product like this. I think it is showing that they dont need to release paid products to the market all the time and they do want to promote a more open source market appeal to themselves. My little boy is 3 soon so I want to start looking at languages that I can be teaching him. Lets face it, VS2008 is far too complex a language at this time with a 90MB framework and climbing, i remember when it was 20 MB the framework. By the time my little one is ready it wont be a possible to teach him every namespace and class available.

I say good look to the future generations and I hope this helps with the education of it.

It makes it more exciting if the child can produce such quick results and something to show for it in a matter of minutes.

All people slating this obviously cannot see the benefits that this can bring, its only in infancy at this time

Good luck to you all and I look forward to teaching my little one with this application when he is ready.

re: Hello World

George Gray — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 23:12:23 GMT

I think this is great, but how about some more documentation? I notice Files are possible, but how the hello do you use them? I'm a developer and find this a bit confusing and the help is less that helpful.

What are the chances that a minimal gui builder be implemented in a future release?

Great work, thanks a bunch. I plan to introduce this to my son.

re: Hello World

jin choung — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 04:24:21 GMT

fantastic and thank you! i'm 35 and i've read no less than 6 books on programming from c++ to python and i've successfully coded a few rudimentary scripts in discreet maya. and i'm convinced that if my life depended on it, i could probably code something substantial... but i just haven't been able to get myself to actually do it.

now you've provided a language SMALL ENOUGH FOR ME TO OUTGROW! that's HUUUUGE! i WANT to be able to exhaust a small language until i'm railing against the boundaries and i think that will help me understand better the reasons for more advanced features in more advanced languages.

i missed my shot at really exhausting the simple basic in my atari 800xl (when i got to all the DATA (1,00, 1, 47, 23) etc statements, my mind just bugged out) but you're providing me a new opportunity so thank you much!

just finished up the getting started guide. is there a glossary of all the builtin statements somewhere? thanks.

jin

re: Hello World

Eddie — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:15:58 GMT

Small Basic is great. I have no real programming experience otehr than some PHP althoguh found Small Basic easy to understand, simpel to use and simple to learn. I've not succesfulyl constructed several usfel programs with the aid of Small Basic.

I agree that better error reporting (i.e. say line 2 instead of the current space nubmer structure system you have). Thanks.

re: Hello World

Eddie — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:17:26 GMT

I agree that better error reporting (i.e. say line 2 instead of the current space nubmer structure system you have). Thanks.

re: Hello World

Eddie — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 17:58:08 GMT

Does Small Basic not support exponentiation? I'm using the operator "^" although it doesn't seem to work.

re: Hello World

cbmeeks — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:33:07 GMT

This is awesome! Brings back the spirit and fun of learning to program. I hope my son picks up something like this one day (he's 4 now).

"why another language? totally useless effort!!!!! why is msft spending valuable resources on thse useless projects..."

Why do you even care? No one forced you to this page or to Small BASIC. And useless projects? Useless to who? You? Why does Honda create walking robots? R&D. MS is a profitable company and a part of that is R&D. See what sticks. This might turn into another profit center...or it might fail.

Get over it and move on. If you like, you can go back to Ruby, Perl, C++ or whatever you choose.

~cbmeeks

re: Hello World

ken — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:11:20 GMT

Thanks so much. I remember fondly spending hour upon hour programming in BASIC on my Commodore 128. Modern program langauges are now just too complicated to be fun. For the first time in many years I look forward to just having fun with programming.

re: Hello World

MikeW — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 02:49:03 GMT

Thanks for creating this. Although I'm a seasoned VB .NET programmer, I was looking for something a little smaller to use for simpler tasks or tasks which don't require complete automation. This also looks fun. I grew up on Basic, so it is also a little nostalgic for me.

re: Hello World

Carl Gundel — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 00:18:28 GMT

People seem to like to complain that there are too many programming languages. The more the merrier if you ask me. It's better to have many alternatives to choose from because if no one writes new programming languages then the field will stagnate. Keep it up!

re: Hello World

Bob — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:49:22 GMT

I'd have thought that a fairly simple script host/IDE/framework for VBScript would be a better investment. After all VBScript was the logical analog of QBasic in Windows.

The script engine was already there. What was needed was a wrapper on it like the one wrapped around the QBasic core.

Time has passed it by though.

New and Notable 274

Sam Gentile's Blog — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 04:15:00 GMT

Haven't wrote much because I am saving up for a big post on Castle Active Record, which I am just really, really enjoying right now in my work. I know we made a good choice. More on that soon. NHibernate/Castle Chad Meyers has posted source/binaries for

re: Hello World

Pasi — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:46:18 GMT

Great to see an usable programming language after so many years.

I built thousands of lines of code with various Basic dialects up to QB45, which I used for a serious tool in R&D environment. Some programs I wrote with VB4, but when VB5 came out, we moved out of Basic.

The developers of VB forgot, that people out here needed a tool to FAST and EASILY build simple mathematical / graphical /snd programs, which were possibly used only once and then deleted. Most of the time lost with the program was gathering the data, the second part was building the theory. Many times I have built the program and the theory same time. The final run took possibly one minute with QB45. It doesn't matter if the compiler builds 10% faster code, if the run-time is about 0.001 % of the total time of the project.

You dont even spend one second thinking about modular or portable code. If time comes, you could allways copy the code to a mainframe, make some modifications and run it as Fortran. The syntax of F77 and old Basic were so similar, that Ieven built a program, which translated Basic to F77 and vice versa.

I was a bit disappointed when I noticed, that SmallBasic(MS) was so different of old versions. SmallBasic of http://smallbasic.sourceforge.net/ is more like QB45 and it is easier to use my old Basic libraries with it.

Another thing is this dotnet3.51: Why ?

re: Hello World

Pasi — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:48:55 GMT

You could have given this SmallBasic name 'SmallJavaScript'. In my eyes this SmallBasic is more near C or Javascript than Basic.

I'll stay waiting for next version of QB45.

re: Hello World

CHOPPERGIRL — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:32:29 GMT

print "hello, world"

1,6: Unrecognized statement encountered.

EPIC FAIL

If you look at small basic code, it looks no less complex than Visual Basic, or even Visual C++.... which are way too complex and obtuse.

re: Hello World

CHOPPERGIRL — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 20:33:41 GMT

Most kids would be much more happier with DARK BASIC PRO, which does cool 3D things.

re: Hello World

YME — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 08:29:39 GMT

Can you give me show me some simple yet challenging programs?

re: Hello World

RANDALL ARMSTRONG — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:24:58 GMT

A CORRECTED VERSION OF REMLINE,AND A FEW Q AND GW PARTS ADAPTED FROM VB DOS1 ,VB WIN 1 ,QB11 AND QB45 WOULD GREATLY IMPROVE YOUR DATABASE AND USERSHIP. THERE IS A

PROGRAM LOST SOME WERE IN THE ARCHIVES,IN THE EARLY 90's,THAT SPEAKS PHOENETICS called essie, a ms SAM PROTOPART.

WORKS SOME WHAT LIKE L+H (r) PRODUCTS. IT's COOLEST FEATURE

IS THAT IT LEARNS IN GOTO LOOPS AND IF THEN STATEMENTS.

IF ONE MADE ENCHARTA FOR BING(r) with a (wemedia) msAGENT,

[2] OR MGRUFF LIKE JAVA(r) BROWSER;this would be a perfect

schoolboard selling point.

BEST WISHES,

R.R.ARMSTRONG

re: Hello World

SaysMe — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:49:16 GMT

In all sincerity, my work and school have driven my need for computing, which really utilizes MS as the dominant provider for platforms in today's market. In all reality, VB for Apps was my intro to programming and now VB Studio. From a non-programming stand-point I thank you for Small Basic because it is a quick and easy way to introduce ADO.NET issues and VB to my nephews this summer. Had it not been for Small Basic I wouldn't be able to captured their attention. It is easy to use and attractive to get them started. My three nephews and I thank you...

re: Hello World

AMANDA — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:18:28 GMT

how come when i type

go.create("world",0,0)

it says

canot find object " GO "

when i do this on my old compuer it worked

cann you help me?

re: Hello World

j jones — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:38:48 GMT

Create an array that stores 10 fahrenheit temperatures. Display the temperatures in celsius. Write a For loop to store the fahrenheit temperatures in the array and write a For loop to convert the temperatures to celsius and display them.

re: Hello World

j jones — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:40:18 GMT

How Do You Creat a lopp 4 this