PowerBASIC
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PowerBASIC is a variant of the BASIC programming language. Its syntax is very close to GW Basic, QBasic, and Turbo Basic. It compiles to native code on PCs (DOS and Win32). The executable files it creates are compact, run fast, and require no runtime dependencies. PowerBASIC compilers are made by PowerBASIC Inc. and are the successor of Turbo BASIC (MSDOS) which was published by Borland International, itself a successor of BASIC/Z (CP/M, MDOS).
PowerBASIC compilers are a popular alternative to Visual Basic, yet actually compare well with C programming language compilers in terms of power. PowerBASIC can create and use DLLs. Unlike Visual Basic's large and mandatory overhead, it is common for a sophisticated application written in PowerBASIC to be small enough to fit on a single floppy disk.
Although PowerBASIC is undoubtedly slim, compact, and powerful, PowerBASIC is only available for two platforms (Win32 and DOS, that is). Worse, only the compiler for Win32 is up-to-date (the compiler for DOS had not been updated for a long time and probably is not as powerful as the latest Win32 compiler).
Moreover, although PowerBASIC's syntax is similar to those used in other BASIC interpreters and compilers, PowerBASIC contains so many powerful proprietary constructs, syntax forms, functions, and procedures that is not compatible with (not available in) other BASIC interpreters and compilers (and even other and older versions of PowerBASIC compiler itself!). This might make porting PowerBASIC codes (esp. codes containing many of those proprietary things) to other BASIC interpreters or compilers much more difficult (esp. since the documentation for those proprietary things is not freely available -- not an open standard, that is). These difficulties might constitute a form of vendor lock-in.
External links
- PowerBASIC website (http://www.powerbasic.com/)
- An Introduction to PowerBASIC (http://www.powerbasic.com/aboutpb.asp)nl:PowerBASIC