PowerBasic - Things to be aware of!

[Mike Trader]

Having been a PowerBasic user for ten years I feel its time to make a few comments about the product that most people coming to it for the first time are probably not aware of.

Since the product positions itself as a VB replacement that runs 20x faster etc etc etc I think its only fair that unsuspecting Vb users know the full story of what to expect from PowerBasic and the owner.

Aside from the technical issues, the biggest concern I have for new users is the heavy moderation of the user forums, including deletion of posts critical of PB (factual and substantiated or not), banning of users that make such errors of judgement and a customer relations policy that can only be described as abusive.

I have tolerated this situation because like so many unsuspecting newbies, I did not come across it until I had put hundreds of hours of learning into the product. The first time I was banned I figured I just must have screwed up in some way I did not understand.

I have refrained from recounting my personal experience in any detail as your mileage may vary, but it is very clear that the owner will refuse to sell you product as "punishment" for criticizing him or PB and you will meet with less than friendly "customer support" should you dare to call.

Since my personal information including full name and address gathered at time of purchase, were given to a third party (an admin at another site) as proof that my handle is not my real name, you may conclude that PB's privacy policy is construed as: "Personal information gathered may be used against you by the owner if and when he feels like it."

Recently I have been banned again for daring posts like these:
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pb...t=35934&page=4
or perhaps this:
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pb...ad.php?t=35768


Coupled with things like this:
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pb...ad.php?t=35253
and comments like this
http://www.jose.it-berater.org/smffo...p?topic=1558.0
http://www.jose.it-berater.org/smffo...p?topic=1562.0

All of a sudden my nick has "come to their attention" as not being my actual name, despite the fact that I hashed this out on the phone with the owner three years ago when he agreed to let me continue using my nick after I bought more product.

The Forum used to be a great resource, but after years of heavy handed culling, all the good developers have left. I have had it too.

Many people have been subjected to this treatment
http://www.freebasic.net/forum/viewt...=10567&start=0

I have often wondered why the PB forums require your FULL REAL NAME. In this latest round, I discovered that they will stop at nothing to harass anyone deemed to be "disruptive"

Users of the PB forum should be aware that they will be REQUIRED to use their full real name, like it or not.
I choose not to use my full real name because some of my competitors and customers could very easily find their way to compilable source code from my name. That simply doesn't make a lot of sense in my business, even if the risk is low that they would be bothered to act on it.

I have heard the argument that PB would suffer from anonymous mud slinging if they did not have this policy. There are a hundred ways to validate a forum member that do not require the broadcasting of their full real name. I think its a little more sinister than that.

My FULL REAL NAME and ADDRESS were sent to the admin of another site, that also recently instituted this policy. I was banned from posting on that site too. Obviously your personal information can expect NO privacy at PowerBASIC!


PB behaves in some odd ways, most noteably in its use of the FPU for DWORD unsigned integer calculations.
After a long thread on the subject the owner finally stated:
Now, I understand that some compilers and interpreters take short-cuts in some situations, but we try to avoid that at PowerBASIC.

If you multiply 3 billion by 3, then divide that result by 3, the correct answer is 3 billion, not 136,688,469.
Bob Zale
PowerBASIC Inc.
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pb...ad.php?t=35375

Since overloading an integer is fundamental to Encryption algos in most languages, this presents a unique problem in PB.
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/pb...ad.php?t=35407

Then there is the issue of a QUAD 64 bit signed integer value being returned on the FPU stack unlike most popular languages.

Additionally, most string functions are relatively slow and only
handles the English alphabet, a-z.
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/fo...ML/003534.html

In this thread, some very proficient users wrote a function to convert a string to a number. A simple version using pointers yeilded 370 clock cycles compared to 5200 for the built in PB version. Using ASM that was reduced to 90 Clks.
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/fo...ML/014510.html
Allthough PB supports ASM (not the full instruction set) it seems that it is not used in the built in functions of the compiler itself.


This thread was deleted
http://www.powerbasic.com/support/fo...-5-000273.html
Because a PB Staff member, Dave Navvaro states:
"we will have a compiler for Linux some time this year"

The original thread is here http://web.archive.org/web/200305220...-5-000273.html here
It should be noted that despite the alleged "No Vaporware" Policy, a Linux compiler has never materialized.


If anyone wants to challenge any of these comments please feel free to do so. I will be happy to provide evidence for any of it.

[k1ll3rdr4g0n]

I know this is off topic,
But I deicded to look around their site. I found the purchase link and saw that PB 8 costs 200$. Not THAT expensive, but I wouldn't shell out that much for basic anything (unless it was VB .Net)
But, the main thing to point out is their " Satisfaction Guarantee".

Within 30 days, you may return any product for a full refund, excluding shipping costs. To qualify, you must obtain a Returned Merchandise Authorization (RMA) number from PowerBASIC Customer Service within 30 days of the invoice date. The money-back guarantee does not apply to products that are delivered electronically by downloading or by e-mail. Click here for our full Satisfaction Guarantee policy.

That means if you buy it online, you can't get a refund.

But, I did some research and they are located here in the US (FL to be exact). And if you have any problems with them, report them to the BBB. You can view their BBB profile here. BBB will try to contact them and if in X days they don't respond, that adds a flag to their report saying that they had a complaint and didn't respond. Which is the worst thing you could do for your business .

[dilettante]

I got the idea over the years that the PB community is a lot like the Delphi community. Without going into more detail I never enjoyed being part of either one.

I don't care much for the product and I feel that most of their claims of superiority are... not grounded in reality.

If you're willing to develop with that degree of pain you might as well look at FreeBasic instead.

[Arispan]

ALSO PowerBasic doesn't have a drag'n'drop window designer like in VB6. You must create your form(s) with code.

[Mike Trader]

I'm not a big VB fan I'm afraid, IMO you may as well move to C++ which has a huge user base and supports OOP of course. If I were to look at another basic it would probably be purebasic which can create executables for Windows, Mac and Linux.

The troubles at powerbasic persist
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.l...056169a01cb21#

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.l...bfaa8fcb30d00#

These issues have seasoned developers porting 10+ years of code.

[storm5510]

I bought one Powerbasic edition back in the DOS era so I was pretty much on my own. It was okay; same syntax as QB, mostly.

I think their current products are way overpriced. Their Windows platform needs a fully-integrated GUI designer. They have a designer that is a different package and an additional cost. Everything they have is of mediocre quality, at best.

I believe Bob Zale is in this for the money, and really doesn't care much for quality. I won't buy anything from then again, and would recommend that others beware also.

[B61Nuke]

I have not used PowerBasic and you can believe that I will not bother trying to use it. With that type mentality from a company, it's best to sit back and watch em slowly die. You cannot treat your customers like ignorant wretches.