From: cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Ofer Inbar)
Subject: Re: Linking in C code with QB.
Organization: Brandeis University
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 01:19:14 GMT

philco@microsoft.com (Phillip Cooper) writes:
>In article <1992Aug18.200009.19106@news.cs.brandeis.edu> cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Ofer Inbar) writes:
>>philco@microsoft.com (Phillip Cooper) writes:
>>>The way our interlanguage calling capabilities are implemented, 
>>>each new product is designed to be compatable with whatever the
>>>current version of other languages are when it is released.
>>>
>>>In other words, when QB 4.5 was released, QC 2.10 was the current
>>>version of QuickC.  QuickC 2.5 was just a twinkle in our language
>>>developer's eyes. :)  Obviously, it would be a little difficult to
>>>ensure compatability with a product that didn't even exist!
>>
>>  You've just contradicted yourself in these two paragraphs, though.
>>When QuickC 2.5 was designed, QuickBASIC 4.5 was the current version
>>of QuickBASIC, so QuickC 2.5 should have been designed to be
>>compatible with it.
>
>Not at all.  When doing interlanguage calling between Basic and another
>language, Basic must be the startup language.  This means that any 
>object module linked in must be compatable with it, not the other way
>around.

Compatibility is a two way street.  If two software products are not
compatible with each other, pinning the blame on one of them to
absolve the other is ridiculous.  Especially when the two programs
were written by the same company.  QB 4.5 and QC 2.5 are incompatible
with each other, and the QC programmers knew this when they wrote the
thing.

The fact that Microsoft has let this situation go on for so long,
letting QB get further and further behind the times, is to me a very
convincing indicator that Microsoft no longer considers QB to be a
current product.  It's not compatible with current versions of other
Microsoft language products, it's not compatible with current video
standards, and it has picked up no new features in four years.  It
doesn't know 286s or 386s, has no conception of EMS and XMS, and its
only interface to the mouse is through interrupts.

>As has been (prematurely) brought up in this group before, it is quite
>likely that a major product announcement regarding our DOS Basics will
>be made quite soon.  Like, in the next couple of weeks or so.

Over three years ago, a Microsoft programmer told me, unofficially,
that pointer support was planned for a future release of QuickBASIC.
Back then, I was very excited about the product.  In a very short
time, I had upgraded from 2.0 to 3.0 (for $15), and then to 4.0 (for
$25) and then 4.01b (free).  It was being continuously enhanced, and I
had the feeling that it was backed by an active development team
always trying to make it better.  I didn't complain about its flaws,
becuase they were being fixed regularly.  QuickBASIC was alive.

QuickBASIC is now dead.  It has stagnated for four years.  It is
behind the times.  It doesn't know anything about modern hardware.
If Microsoft puts out a perfunctory maintenance release, without
pointer support, and charges some outrageous price like $40 or $50 for
it, that'll be the last straw as far as I'm concerned.  They might as
well let it die a peaceful death, because I'm not going to have
anything to do with them anymore, if I can help it.

  --  Cos (Ofer Inbar)  --  cos@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu
  --  WBRS (BRiS)  --  WBRS@binah.cc.brandeis.edu  WBRS@brandeis.bitnet
 FidoNet: Ofer Inbar on 1:101/310  --  Ofer.Inbar@f310.n101.z1.fidonet.org
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