i can say it better than that of course

the reason there's a huge rift in what's left of the community (and why freebasic isn't and won't be more popular than it is) isn't that freebasic is muddled with basic AND c, or that (theoretically) you can mix the two...

in practice, using freebasic actually robs you of the option to use BASIC to get things done.

you don't have the option of doing the things you did before, you have to do it the "freebasic" way, or as i continue to call it, free but not basic.

okay, there's no such thing as "pure basic" anymore... that's great... but there is such a thing as friendly. freebasic ain't it, the community ain't it... having people hit you over the head with how OOP is superior all the time is something right out of the c++ community. you're expected to learn a new language that holds itself to no standard.

in theory, that might give you options, but in practice, it's a language built for *******s, by *******s. if you want to kill basic, as v1c once appropriately said, freebasic is surely the thing to use.

if you want to preserve and promote basic, you're going to need something else, no matter how good c and oop (and gcc) are. i'm still looking for a good BASIC, not a good basic+c... in practice, freebasic is neither.

time will tell whether my theory was closer to the reality of it, or yours, but i'm ultimately concerned with the real effect- the further splitting of the basic community, the pain in the ass it's become to do simple tasks (like work with the TEXT screen) the idea that procedural programming should be eschewed and abandoned, the idea that basic is just something that can be taken in any direction, no matter how complicated and un-basic, and it won't matter. very, very little of it has anything to do with basic at all, but plenty to do with "freebasic."

i would go so far as to say that if you wanted to destroy the joy of basic programming for most people, freebasic would be the way to do it. kind of like how microsoft "forces" drm restrictions on legitimate users: first offer some flashy content and benefits, keep telling people "it wasn't that great before anyway, you don't want to go back to the way it was" and lock them in to the new way of doing things- from there it all goes so uphill that you get tired and don't want to bother anymore, but not before giving up basic itself. left to itself, that would be freebasic's legacy.

that's certainly how basic feels to me right now, looking at freebasic, after coding for 20+ years. i don't want to code in freebasic, but i do sometimes anyway- because it's there. i don't want to code in qbasic, because i want more features, but ultimately i'm searching for something better. something that isn't c, something that IS basic, and something that above all, is NOT fb. as long as freebasic is around, there are going to be a lot of people looking for what i'm looking for, and even more than just give up, as they are foolish enough to believe that freebasic is the best thing there is. really, it's a pile of crap, and about as much fun to use, the longer you use it.

great job adding features, fb, now if you could just add organization, ease of use, and make it fun again- that is, fun for basic coders, not just fun for wannabe c coders. no, freebasic ain't it.