Where are the newbies?

[Cliff Nichols]

hat said, your page at http://www.garybeene.com/power/pb-sites.htm is one heck of a potentially useful page. You did a nice job on that.

Here Here, I 2nd that.

Gary has done a most EXCELLENT job so far

If wanting to port from VB to PB I would suggest www.mvps.org]MvPS List or even better www.mvps.org]Randy Birch - VbNet (not .NET)

I use these often for my transition from VB to PB and then correct for porting ideas that examples my hardcode values rather than using meaningful equates. (or the more meaningful explaination of a value that PB gives me)

A list of 3rd party could be helpful or harmful, but I think its up to (Can I relate to this page best??? concept)

Again I must add Gary has done an EXCELLENT job and well pointing to Jose, and others well versed in their particular area (especially when it comes to PB)

[colin glenn]

I would recommend Xtreme Visual Basic Talk's VB:

http://www.xtremevbtalk.com/

As a potential addition.

[Michael Mattias]

That said, your page at http://www.garybeene.com/power/pb-sites.htm is one heck of a potentially useful page. You did a nice job on that.

[Michael Mattias]

Actually I was thinking of a page of such links from this site.

That is, something similar to the "Third party products" page... you know, "hey, we don't guarantee any of this stuff but you might find it interesting".

[Gary Beene]

Michael,

You mean like this - list of PB sites, comments on what's there, ranking of content?

http://www.garybeene.com/power/pb-sites.htm

I've had this up since my PowerBASIC section went online.

Or Fred's link page at http://oasys.rain.prohosting.com/frameex1.htm with a short description of several sites?

What's not there are Windows programming or assembly programming tutorial sites - where the content is useful but the word PowerBASIC never shows up. A "related" list could be huge - especially since almost all languages have code/tutorial sites that could be usefully converted to PB code.

[Michael Mattias]

>What about having a tutorial forum where people can make "how to" posts?

There principal problem with "how to" tutorials is that nobody ever wants to do exactly that.

FWIW, there already are a number of "how-to" and "getting started" tutorial web sites for PB programming. But I just realized: there is no INDEX of those sites, is there?

Maybe someone needs to build a page of "related web sites" somewhere... a URL and and one-paragraph description of same?

[colin glenn]

I know this topic is now several weeks old, but was thinking, there's a source code forum, several forums for asking questions about how to do something, what about haing a tutorial forum where people can make "how to" posts? Or posting tips and tricks?

[Hedley Moses]

Hedley,

As one of the new-to-PB (but getting less new every day) guys, I had similar troubles getting started. So I wrote my on introductory material. Check out my website PB tutorials to see if they can help you.

I was used to my previous XXX language taking care of many details for me, something PB does not do. PB Help is actually very massive, with lots of excellent information, but I needed things organized and put into a perspective that my background allowed me to absorb . That's what I hoped I did in my PB tutorials.

Ok I've just spent a few hours on the Powerbasic section on the GaryBeene website. As a windows and PB newbie trying to transition from non-windows to a windows environment, I found the tutorials just what the doctor ordered. Theres over a 100 000 words of content pitched a just the right level covering almost every aspect of PB and windows programming. An exceptional piece of work. I would like to point all newbies to this site.

Thanks Gary, right now you are my most favourite person in the world

[Hedley Moses]

Hedley,

As one of the new-to-PB (but getting less new every day) guys, I had similar troubles getting started. So I wrote my on introductory material. Check out my website PB tutorials to see if they can help you.

I was used to my previous XXX language taking care of many details for me, something PB does not do. PB Help is actually very massive, with lots of excellent information, but I needed things organized and put into a perspective that my background allowed me to absorb . That's what I hoped I did in my PB tutorials.

Thanks Gary, just what I've been looking for

[Cliff Nichols]

Hedley, I look it as the API is the operating system (yes I know there are ways of doing assembley direct, etc, but...)

To me, .NET is nothing more than a ton of "Wrapper functions" to call each Api as needed for your particular application


Maybe its just my area, but I have yet found a .NET solution that I could not find a API solution (to me, its just .NET could be easier to call if not wanting to no how to call? sort of thing)

[John Montenigro]

Conceptually speaking would an application I develop be able to trap and send messages to the message board that was meant for another program. In other words could I write a macro/scripting type of application which would monitor the message board and capture the screens and field content meant for another program under windows and later "playback" those screens for the other program. An example I can think of where this could be useful is developing a recording tool which will later 'playback' the recording for the purpose of performing mass updates within a transactional environment. In the ERP world (SAP, JD Edwards, etc) there is often a need to perform bulk changes to transaction data.

I'm not the expert on the implementations, so I'll stand down and be corrected as needed, but I'm just finishing a little app that reads text from the statusbar of IE... so I'd say yes this can be done.

However, back to the "WHAT" you're trying to do...

In the ERP world (SAP, JD Edwards, etc) there is often a need to perform bulk changes to transaction data.

I'd be more inclined to research the hell out of what is possible in those environments before I tried to hook into their messaging!!!

{sitting down to let larger voices speak}

[Fred Harris]

Jose has some code over in his forum showing how to load the .NET CLR (Common Language Runtime) using PowerBASIC and execute methods of the .NET framework. Frankly, I havn't had a chance to explore it, but it looks really interesting. Here is the link...

http://www.jose.it-berater.org/smfforum/index.php?topic=2809.0

We all choose the particular programming language we use based on our personal evaluation of the plusses and minuses we see. For me, .NET had more negatives than positives, so I moved away from it. However, there are certainly some major positives. For the past couple days I've been working with grids and determining when the user made edits to some particular cell so that I can save that particular cell value back to storage. I recall in .NET there were grids and connection methodologies that allowed for the disconnected recordsets required for scalable client/server apps but handled all the data persisting code automatically.

It would be kind of neat to explore using parts of the .NET framework from PowerBASIC. I know Edwin has done a lot of work in that area with his application development software.

[Chris Holbrook]

For the most part, though, the questions I've seen in these forums aren't from people looking for easy answers.

Easy anwsers are sometimes just the ticket. Life's too short to learn all the long answers.

What we need is questions which make the answers easy, that is, having adequate detail and where relevant, compileable source code.

[Barry Marks]

I look at it as "Professor vs Students".

The "Students that want an easy answer will not take the time to research "WHY" the easy answer will answer their problem", the student that wants to know why will study and understand, and actually pass the final exam.

I don't really see the problem with that. This isn't a classroom. It's a forum. It's a lot more open and flexible environment than a classroom and it doesn't have a curriculum to follow.

I can understand why someone might not want to help those who just want easy answers but that's okay. Someone else usually will.

And, after a while, those who want easy answers, if that's all they ever want, will give up and go away and the ones who just wanted an easy anwer to get past a sticking point and have the gumption to go back and learn it later, have been helped and they'll stick around.

For the most part, though, the questions I've seen in these forums aren't from people looking for easy answers.

Barry

[Kev Peel]

.NET "managed" code (which is the whole idea of .NET applications) is compiled/run by the .NET compiler itself. The only advantage I can see of a potential "PB.NET" is PB's syntax.
Any advantages (ie. optimization) of the existing PB compiler would be lost to Microsoft's .NET compiler with PB.NET.

To put it plainly, when you program in .NET you only use one compiler - Microsoft's.

[Michael Mattias]

You mean something like

#COMPILE EXE |DLL|ASSEMBLY "filename"

???

[Hedley Moses]

Thanks Michael

I wonder if there will be any value if PB compilers were developed to be .NET compliant. Who knows maybe Bob will give us a surprise soon.

[Michael Mattias]

I'd say it more like.....

The Windows' API is a set of functions available on Windows regardless of development tool, architecture or programming techinque.

.NET itself is an architecture, although most development tools which create applications using the .NET architecture include add-on libraries.

The PowerBASIC compilers are development tools which create applications using "traditional" architecuture; .NET applicaitons can incorporate PB-created modules by treating them as "unmanaged" code.

I will guess one "could" create .NET-architecture programs using the PB compilers, but it would be neither fun or easy and would almost certainly mean eschewing many or even most of the instrinsic functions and statements.
UPDATE/CORRECTION
After further review, the play as called on the field is reversed. I don't see any way you could generate the byte code used in the .NET architecture other than essentially writing a compiler as your PB-application.

[Hedley Moses]

[QUOTE=Cliff Nichols;309523]For easy subjects, I totally agree with MCM

.NET...I stay away from that cause they went format of languages that were MUCH HARDER to understand, than I had time to invest, (not to say anything is wrong about the language, just not for me)
QUOTE]

Hi, Windows newbie question, forgive if it sounds real entry level.
.NET vs API, From researching the web my understanding of API and .NET are that API are the functions and objects within the windows environment and used by windows whereas .NET is an additional set of add-on libraries for use by the application developer. Is this understanding correct?

[Hedley Moses]

You bet I remember - and still have one!



And the primary mechanism that controls program execution is no longer the "go get into the sandbox and play" model, but rather a game of "mother may I?", with all "control signals" being communicated via a kind of "scrolling message board" - programs (or parts of programs) are all constantly scanning the board to see if any messages have been posted for them. If they see a message that's addressed to them, they get the cop's permission, and then they can do what the message directs them to do.
-John

Conceptually speaking would an application I develop be able to trap and send messages to the message board that was meant for another program. In other words could I write a macro/scripting type of application which would monitor the message board and capture the screens and field content meant for another program under windows and later "playback" those screens for the other program. An example I can think of where this could be useful is developing a recording tool which will later 'playback' the recording for the purpose of performing mass updates within a transactional environment. In the ERP world (SAP, JD Edwards, etc) there is often a need to perform bulk changes to transaction data.