freebasic to officially abandon attempts at qb compatibility by version 1.0

v1ctor wrote:

And -lang deprecated won't be supported when 1.0 is released, what can take years. If until there your apps/games still needing that mode to build, or you can use a pre-1.0 release (they will be lasting forever in sf.net where files are never removed), or, if they are really interesting, i'm sure someone will pick them up and update the sources to compile without -deprecated.


basically, freebasic, that "100% compatible" qb language (the readme file says so, they've been saying the only issue is the blue IDE for years now) deprecated the qb "compatibility" to a -lang switch.

as you can see in the verbatim quote above, even -lang will be written out by version 1.0. and this is your qb compatible language... trying to rid itself of qb compatibility before it's out of beta.

when it wasn't supported, i called b.s. when it was deprecated, i called b.s. now the author is all but saying i was right, and that if qb compatibility matters, it will have to be someone else that makes fb into what fb said it was all along. i have to say: I TOLD YOU SO. don't bother me with this -lang nonsense, it smelled like red herring and it flopped like red herring. freebasic is a flatout lie, and it takes two years for them to figure it out, and/or admit it.

so how fast is this great langauge spreading?

fewer people joined the official forum in june 06 than in june 05. same for july 2006. same for september, october (by 1) and december 2006 and fewer this january than last january.

on average, 5 fewer people have joined per month, measuring from may05-apr06 to may06-thismonth-apr07. at that rate, a total of SIXTY FEWER people will have joined in freebasic's second year than their first year.

v1c said in 0.16 that unless it was absolutely needed, no fundamental changes would be made in the language. 0.17 would be standard... as i suspected, this is not the case. the fact is that freebasic is NOT in the beta stage, it is in a very arrogant and absurd, and relatively sloppy alpha stage. most alpha stages are better planned. beta shouldn't even make changes this broad... let alone promise to again and again, just to go back on it.

is this the language you want to invest your time in? *Sixty* FEWER people (actually so far, 45) say "yes." considering how long it takes to dig through all the hype (on average, it takes someone two years of wasted time: "Myself, I'm done with FB, and I'm quite bitter that the project I put so much effort into has headed off into this tangent... literally hundreds of other open source BASIC compilers would arbitrarily change the fundamental design of the BASIC language for purely intellectual reasons, or because it was easier to cut corners..." i'm just here to say: don't bother.

and if you think it will EVER be compatible with qb, just read what v1c said a few more times, since it took 2 years for fb's creator to be that honest (or realistic.) i have had big fans of fb say over and over, i'm lying, i'm wrong, it will be compatible with -lang. well, -lang was introduced in 0.16, and its future death announced prior to -0.17. i saw it coming, but i was "crazy" to say it before, even if i was ABSOLUTELY right.