Pure Basic: PureBasic has most of the desirable characteristics of a great language. It is a game development language & is blisteringly fast. It delivers powerful graphic image manipulations at lightning speed. It has powerful mathematical functions; but, lacks a wide range of statistical and other libraries. PureBasic is cross-platform compatible with versions for Mac OS, Windows & Linux. It comes with a very usable IDE. While PureBasic is not free, the entire package with IDE is less expensive than a quality IDE for Python & other high level languages.
PureBasic IDE with Pop-Up Display superimposed
The included IDE is a 'zero learn time' pleasure to use. Program listings are automatically indented (for loops, while loops etc.) for easy comprehension of program logic. And the language exhibits a consistent, natural feeling set of commands (e.g. box(x1,y1,width,height) & structure. PureBasic error messages generally identify the location & clearly describe the problem.
Pure Basic thrives in the GUI world. It builds drop down menus & GUI control panels full of widgets with elegance. It also has a visual designer (VD) to achieve 'just the right layout' for your GUI panels (Personally, I have not used the 'VD'). If you want to build a fast, modern looking program, PureBasic is an excellent solution. These capabilities come with the package, so there is no need for GUI related libraries.
PureBasic Help Screen for Box Command
PureBasic has excellent resources for learning the language & resolving difficult programming issues. Help screens are very clear & provide simple examples. Help screens have duel organisation, both 'topical' & 'alphabetic'. Free documentation can be downloaded using links on the PureBasic Forum web site & visitors are welcome. Documentation is available in French, English, German, Russian & Chinese.
Helpful User Community: I have found the Pure Basic forum to be a group of positive & helpful individuals willing to give of themselves to others. The creator of Purebasic (Fred) is likewise an excellent, level headed guy who curates the forum with compassion. 'Who cares?', you might ask. For most of us, programming can be a demanding & sometimes frustrating experience. Sometimes we miss something simple that stop us for hours. Having a team of helpful experts is a great plus.
Negatives: Pure Basic was developed for creating computer games. It has powerful capabilities for 3-D mapping, moving map displays & floating transparent background images across the screen. It has features built in to handle 'bone derived' figure motion. While it is a power house of graphic & game oriented features, it lacks very common features built into most languages -- like routines that print nice tables of data having 4 decimal places. While a dozen lines of code 'whips' this problem, it is more convenient to have these facilities provided. While some 3rd parties are available, a wide selection of libraries (such as for statistical analysis) are not available.
Fairly recently, I updated my Mac operating system to Mac OS High Sierra. My original PureBasic download proved incompatible. The PureBasic Forum provided the answer: Download and install xCode (free from Apple) and download the most recent up-date for PureBasic (also free). The PureBasic update is fast, solid & beautiful --- just like my original version. I am still busy finishing up a Python project, but I am anxious to get back to the beauty & simplicity of PureBasic.
My Favourite Language: Of all the languages I have used (see note 1), Pure Basic is my favourite. For doing Engineering & Scientific applications, I sometimes find Python more convenient because of the powerful libraries that are readily available. While Python has a nice syntax & fairly 'natural' naming for its functions, Purebasic is faster, easier to use & more intuitive.
Try It Out for Free!
Want to Try it Out? If you would like a trial version of PureBasic, use the link below. A limited licensed download (with most features) is available for Windows, Mac OS or Linux. If you decide to try it out, please use one of the educational links below because print 'Hello World!' does not work in PureBasic's GUI world! The simplest PureBasic GUI code generating a "hello world" PopUp is shown below. (The second illustration in this article shows the on screen Pop-Up):
MessageRequester("Hello World!","PureBasic is here!"); popup message box
Debug('The Debug command is a down & dirty output method'); usually used during debugging
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Note: Over the years, the author has programming in a variety of languages including: multiple varieties of Basic (Applesoft, GW, Z-Basic, Quick Basic), Fortran, C, PHP, Java, MatLab & PureBasic.
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