Lesliect6

Why does everyone say Dark Basic isn't really a language? If you can make the same programs with it as with C++, and it is easier to use, then there shouldn't be any problem...

Ooble

Because all programmers with a few years of experience under their belt (including me) realise that anything based on BASIC is inherently evil. :p

Mainly, it's because BASIC was designed to be a teaching language. Therefore, it's not designed for code optimization or anything "cool". It's slow, the syntax is irritating, and it's over-reliant on the goto keyword. DarkBASIC falls to many of the same problems.

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tempest

DarkBASIC is a programming language made for creating video games, when i played with it once it was hard for me to pick up on it knowing C/C++, True Basic, and VB at the time.. it just sucked in general. Most programming languages have libraries, and resources in place to handle most all problems that one who was "programming" would face. Dark BASIC however only conquers the needs of a lazy game developer who wants to build a slow game in BASIC. For that reason, although in a sense it is programming, it's not a programming language.

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Arevos

I'm inclined to agree in principle. If you can accomplish your goals faster in Dark Basic than in C++, and you're not worried about being cutting edge, more power to you.

That said, as a language it's less flexible than average, and I wouldn't be inclined to use it. I prefer my languages fast or powerful; Dark Basic is neither, but it does fit its particular niche reasonably well.

Those who have read the Camel Book know that being lazy is often a desirable quality when it comes to programming

linuxpimp20

i've read about that before as well that lazy is good for a programmer because they are always trying to cut corners doing things with less code. I was going to try programming a small program but on that note im going to go play splinter cell. lol.

to stay on topic: Languages like C/C++ have been around for years and many people are well versed in them which means more libraries and more help avaible online. I've never heard of DarkBasic before i joined this forum. In short the "popular" languages are handy because there is more support for them.

tempest

I'm aware of what the camel book says. Learning how to do something in a language that only allows you to do it badly is not a profitable venture in programming.

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Benoit

Dark BASIC....Is that like the dark side of the force? When I learned Visual Basic at school I found it teaches nothing but lazyness and bad habits

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Arevos

Sure, it won't teach you anything, but if it allows you to develop faster than you would otherwise, then it's an acceptable language to choose. Just so long as you don't make a career out of it

But I'd certainly agree with you that you cannot be a good programmer without learning new languages, otherwise you get used to bad programming practices.

Lesliect6

Well, most of your arguments are quite convincing. But I don't agree in several points:

1. You can make fast and amusing games in DarkBasic, with a certain level of detail which is not crap or anything like that : in the contrary, I can make you some screenshots of a game I made in DarkBasic that are quite impressive.

2. You don't have to use always the goto command, as it really is buggy sometines, but I use instead the gosub command with a built-in subfunction.

Ooble

GoSub is just as bad. There's one reason people don't use Assembly: it's unsafe. Unless DarkBASIC is very different from BASIC, so is GoSub. You have to return.

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