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Basic Programming Language Part 2: Modern Day


The popularity of BASIC has significantly declined in recent years, with many new programming languages taking its place. Python, for example, is frequently recommended as an easy-to-learn, beginner-friendly programming language. Despite this decline, BASIC has not completely disappeared and still has several modern implementations. Some of the notable ones include:

1. FreeBASIC: A modern BASIC compiler for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and even MS-DOS. FreeBASIC offers modern features like object-oriented programming and support for OpenGL and DirectX. By default, it is not compatible with older BASIC programs, but compatibility can be achieved by running FreeBASIC with the -lang qb parameter, which attempts to replicate QuickBASIC behavior and can compile many QuickBASIC programs without modification. Unlike QuickBASIC, FreeBASIC is a command-line-only compiler unless users manually install an external integrated development environment (IDE). IDEs specifically made for FreeBASIC include FBide and FbEdit. FreeBASIC is a free, open-source product.

2. QB64PE: A BASIC compiler for Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X, designed to be compatible with Microsoft QBasic and QuickBASIC. It offers a modern audio and graphics library, as well as networking capabilities. QB64PE maintains strong compatibility with QuickBASIC and QBasic, though not 100%, and includes a built-in IDE. QB64PE is a free, open-source product.

3. Visual Basic Net: A continuation of Microsoft's Visual Basic, implemented on .NET, Mono, and the .NET Framework. Visual Basic is often used in conjunction with the Windows Forms GUI library to create desktop applications for Windows. Programming with Visual Basic .NET involves dragging and dropping controls on a form using a GUI designer and writing the corresponding code for each control. The Visual Basic .NET compiler is open source, while Visual Studio is free with some commercial features.

4. Microsoft's Small Basic: A BASIC interpreter with a built-in IDE, designed to help students transition from visual programming languages like Scratch to text-based programming. The language has only 14 keywords and includes a "Turtle" graphics library inspired by the Logo family of programming languages. Small Basic is available for Windows and online, and is a free, open-source program.

5. Gambas: An object-oriented dialect of the BASIC programming language, accompanied by an integrated development environment. Available for Linux and FreeBSD, Gambas is designed to build graphical programs using the Qt or GTK toolkit. The Gambas IDE is written in Gambas and includes a GUI designer to aid in creating user interfaces in an event-driven style. Gambas can also create command-line applications and text-based user interfaces. It is a free, open-source program.

6. SmallBASIC: Designed to run on minimal hardware, with primary support for platforms like Palm OS, where memory, CPU cycles, and screen space are limited. SmallBASIC supports applications similar to those of GW-BASIC and QBasic on the IBM PC, with capabilities for drawing graphic primitives, creating sounds, string manipulation, and displaying text in various fonts. It is also intended as a tool for mathematics, with built-in functions for unit conversion, algebra, matrix math, trigonometry, statistics, and two- and three-dimensional equation graphing.

7. Others: Several lesser-known implementations of BASIC exist, such as Dragon BASIC for the Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS, wwwBasic for embedding BASIC directly into web pages, Tiny-Basic, a BASIC implementation in Python, and Quite BASIC and qbjs, online implementations of BASIC.

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