Author Topic: John's reason for leaving  (Read 11837 times)

ZXDunny

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #30 on: September 25, 2018, 01:02:52 AM »
I understand what you're saying, but we really didn't force him to unsubscribe - he did that all himself.

For a very long time now I've seen him mercilessly tear into anyone who dares to use their BASIC for fun (including me, with nasty snide comments about "museum BASICs" and suchlike) with little to no provocation. Someone dared to suggest that Script BASIC was not really suitable for beginner coders, whereupon he started laying down the law on what a BASIC should and should not be, and that all other BASIC implementations were toys, that we were children for using or promoting them.

And I just saw red, and I snapped. And you know what? I stand by everything I said. Aurel can behave like a blithering idiot at times[1], B+ gets wrapped up in his experiments, Tomaaz loves him some Python/Ruby/Lisp/Whatever scripting and not a single one of them has ever suggested that their preferred platform is better than another and nor have they ridiculed others for wanting to use them. The only one who has done that is John. Can't access system APIs or libraries from your BASIC? Your BASIC is worthless then. Your BASIC hasn't been adopted as some sort of fantasy industry standard? Your BASIC is a toy then. The list of his nastiness goes on.

And the moment someone decides to throw that back in his face? He flounces out of the forum like a Diva without her morning Chai-Latte and goes and hides in his own wasteland. And it's not the first time he's done that, either.

Now, throughout my history on the BASIC programming scene I have blown up at someone like that precisely never before I did to him.

I'm sure everyone would welcome him back with open arms should he leave his bitchy nature at the door, but he seems incapable. Which means we'll just have to soldier on with our fun BASICs, our toys and our complete lack of professional adoption. But hey ho, eh?





[1] Aurel and Tomaaz have history. Aurel hates Python and says it's not BASIC (which it isn't) and Tomaaz likes to post Python and suchlike to wind Aurel up. But that's more of a tradition at this point and it's fun to watch them banter. And besides, at least Aurel has actually written a few interpreters...

B+

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Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #31 on: September 25, 2018, 01:44:17 AM »
... I really hate line numbers and GOTO.

There was always a "conventional" goto in C, and now there are also "computed" goto's there, yet we never had much of "spaghetti code" issues in C programming. Hence my welcome to goto which often appears to be the only graceful way out in quite a number of practical coding situations (especially when one wishes to reuse blocks of similar code under different conditions), and my rejection of line numbers which thus appear to be the only reason of "spaghetti code" issue in retro-BASIC listings with their cumbersome yet indispensable line numbering.

'D' — deduction. Elementary, my dear Watson! (c) :D

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It's unfinished, feels dated ...

Script BASIC was finished even way back when it first appeared on its original scriptbasic dot com site. It came in two flavors (Linux and Windows), was supplied with exhaustive user and developer documentation, and included a number of exemplary and practical extensions (both front- and back-end) to allow for future diversification and expansion.

Peter Verhas was as meticulous a language developer as there only can be. What his successors tried and achieved to a varying degree of success was building upon the solid base he was so prescient to provide.

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SpecBas, on the other hand, is an unique project that offers something really original.

SpecBAS is essentially a more or less successful steam-punk project and should be treated as such. Nuff said.

____________________________________

The havoc usually begins when somebody instigates, accidentally or on purpose, that silly discussion about "the most beginner-friendly BASIC" again — before the aging audience of chieftains with no Indians. Last time it was menn, this time it is B+. While you guys are at it, the beginners are mastering OxygenBasic. ;)


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Mark, sure you wouldn't meddle in the public conversation of two passers-by walking the same street as you even if they'd be talking things you don't particularly like? That would be trolling, not my mentioning someone in my words addressed to my interlocutor.

Hey Mike,

Exactly who was your interlocutee here, it looks to me like your signed off with D with that big old bar and were then addressing all us.

"While you guys are at it." yep. (Sorry to disturb your vacation but this is fun.)

By the way, I would interrupt a conversation on the street if they were talking about me, after I got over the shock of it.

I would also have to set them straight if they were saying what a sh*t Mike was. I mean you've got to respect a loyal friend.

So tell John he can come back (if he wants to), I insist (can't speak for everyone) (if you want to). This might have D see red for the 2nd time in his life and get me kicked off the island but I will risk it. I always loved the transformation scene in movies where the bad men see the light and change their evil ways. It could happen.

I will try to put up with his commercial interruptions, as I do with Tomaaz and Aurel bickering and D's line numbers and Richey's silly discussion about the most beginner friendly Basic and whatever the hell B+ is up to??? I must say the other's sins don't hold a candle to commercial interruptions but I will try to not get "hysterical" (as if I could). He might try and put up with our having some fun. Maybe if we all try real hard... ;)

BTW the Indians are looking really good this year, good thing because I think the Cavs are up for a great fall, it may be a long winter.

(Even before the big 'ol bar across half the screen, you said "Nuff said." Again that sure sounds like a sign off with the interlocutee.)

Nuff said?  ;)
« Last Edit: September 25, 2018, 02:39:50 AM by B+ »

B+

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #32 on: September 25, 2018, 03:14:09 AM »
All My Children
As the World Turns These Are the Days of Our Lives
From These Roots of The Dark Shadows of The Secret Storm
we Search for Tomorrow The Guiding Light
with Passions Of The Bold and Beautiful
from Dallas to Santa Barbara
from Falcon Crest to Port Charlse
for Ryan's Hope, A Brighter Day
at The Edge of Night in the General Hospital with Grey's Anatomy
gone Black...



« Last Edit: September 25, 2018, 04:55:51 PM by B+ »

Richly

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #33 on: September 25, 2018, 06:29:13 AM »
... I really hate line numbers and GOTO.

There was always a "conventional" goto in C, and now there are also "computed" goto's there, yet we never had much of "spaghetti code" issues in C programming. Hence my welcome to goto which often appears to be the only graceful way out in quite a number of practical coding situations (especially when one wishes to reuse blocks of similar code under different conditions), and my rejection of line numbers which thus appear to be the only reason of "spaghetti code" issue in retro-BASIC listings with their cumbersome yet indispensable line numbering.

'D' — deduction. Elementary, my dear Watson! (c) :D

Quote
It's unfinished, feels dated ...

Script BASIC was finished even way back when it first appeared on its original scriptbasic dot com site. It came in two flavors (Linux and Windows), was supplied with exhaustive user and developer documentation, and included a number of exemplary and practical extensions (both front- and back-end) to allow for future diversification and expansion.

Peter Verhas was as meticulous a language developer as there only can be. What his successors tried and achieved to a varying degree of success was building upon the solid base he was so prescient to provide.

Quote
SpecBas, on the other hand, is an unique project that offers something really original.

SpecBAS is essentially a more or less successful steam-punk project and should be treated as such. Nuff said.

____________________________________

The havoc usually begins when somebody instigates, accidentally or on purpose, that silly discussion about "the most beginner-friendly BASIC" again — before the aging audience of chieftains with no Indians. Last time it was menn, this time it is B+. While you guys are at it, the beginners are mastering OxygenBasic. ;)


Quote
Mark, sure you wouldn't meddle in the public conversation of two passers-by walking the same street as you even if they'd be talking things you don't particularly like? That would be trolling, not my mentioning someone in my words addressed to my interlocutor.

Hey Mike,

Exactly who was your interlocutee here, it looks to me like your signed off with D with that big old bar and were then addressing all us.

"While you guys are at it." yep. (Sorry to disturb your vacation but this is fun.)

By the way, I would interrupt a conversation on the street if they were talking about me, after I got over the shock of it.

I would also have to set them straight if they were saying what a sh*t Mike was. I mean you've got to respect a loyal friend.

So tell John he can come back (if he wants to), I insist (can't speak for everyone) (if you want to). This might have D see red for the 2nd time in his life and get me kicked off the island but I will risk it. I always loved the transformation scene in movies where the bad men see the light and change their evil ways. It could happen.

I will try to put up with his commercial interruptions, as I do with Tomaaz and Aurel bickering and D's line numbers and Richey's silly discussion about the most beginner friendly Basic and whatever the hell B+ is up to??? I must say the other's sins don't hold a candle to commercial interruptions but I will try to not get "hysterical" (as if I could). He might try and put up with our having some fun. Maybe if we all try real hard... ;)

BTW the Indians are looking really good this year, good thing because I think the Cavs are up for a great fall, it may be a long winter.

(Even before the big 'ol bar across half the screen, you said "Nuff said." Again that sure sounds like a sign off with the interlocutee.)

Nuff said?  ;)

In fairness to Menn, he's not even registered on this site and B+ is innocent. I confess that I was the guilty party who instigated the Beginner Friendly BASIC thread. Very interesting I thought, especially considering the many different varieties of BASIC out there.. :)

Aurel

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #34 on: September 25, 2018, 06:45:47 AM »
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Aurel can behave like a blithering idiot at times

- Yo Paul Yo!

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And besides, at least Aurel has actually written a few interpreters...

- Yes you right ...

just psssst ...i will add in new one LISTS,TUPLES and other powerful & flexibile things

B+

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #35 on: September 25, 2018, 01:15:52 PM »
Hi Richey,

B+ not innocent, but having fun with John who thinks SB reserved for ScriptASIC.

see this thread:
http://retrogamecoding.org/board/index.php?topic=673.0

Another unbelievable commercial interruption in the middle of Cyb's welcome thread to SmallBASIC.

OK so we have to call SmallBASIC sb, not SB because as you can see John thinks ScriptASIC was there first for beginners (on servers?).

So B+ renames his little beginner interpreter BRUN to SB shorthand for Shorthand Basic because BRUN really is as much for Beginners as ScriptASIC but in a completely different way like it works from the get go without a bunch of hooey. Well this SB.exe does have CLS and Locate without need of an Extension or Pluggable library.

Do you know that just about any Basic is complete Editor, DataBase program, SpreadSheet, Browser... because you can RUN all these from a BASIC program no need for more dll, libraries...   just like Frankenstein rebuilt from spare parts how glue-able is that! ?

BTW, I didn't think your thread title silly at all, just having more fun.

Nuff said?


« Last Edit: September 25, 2018, 04:58:20 PM by B+ »

Mike Lobanovsky

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #36 on: September 26, 2018, 10:17:25 AM »
Exactly who was your interlocutee here ...

Sorry but both my FF spell checker and Cambridge dictionary flag this word as broken. OTOH "interlocutor" is primarily "one's opponent in a conversation". Was it meant to be an "interlo-cutie"? An attempt at newspeak?

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it looks to me like your signed off with D with that big old bar

No, I signed off with 'D' (presumably that stands for Paul Dunn and his SpecBAS in your funny world of nicknames, handles and general "safe anonymity") with "nuff said".

Joking aside, I really do perceive his BASIC dialect as some engine in the vein of steam punk subculture:


and his followers, as a group of steam punk deviationists:


that may be fun to look at but are certainly not role models to follow for 10 year old young ladies.

And I am equally fascinated with that cute picture of amateur language dialects: (courtesy of JRS at AllBasic dot info :) )


that can hardly do anything but print a "Hello world" at the console prompt yet dare doctor the mature language developers on what's good and what's bad for a "beginner" and what's what on the BASIC scene in general. Sure language development is fun enough and a worthy challenge even at this rudimentary stage but you'll have miles and miles to go before you're able to cognize the real "blood, sweat and tears" of the profession.

FBSL had a standard 400 lines long BASIC include file that re-implemented LB's sprite graphics engine including its sprite animation scripting "language" in its entirety that worked up to 3 times faster and could handle up to 10 times more animated sprites than its (bloated, buggy, slow, and commercial) prototype. Now what LB user can lecture me on what regards the usability, beginner-friendliness, and applicability of Liberty Basic? :)

You know what? Why Richard Russell, the author of another successful LB rival -- LB Booster -- quit the old BP dot org was mainly for the same reason, which was the militant profanity of characters like menn that dominated the former home of defunct BASIC dialects. I wouldn't like to see retrogamecoding dot org follow suit.

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... and were then addressing all us.

Your guesswork was wrong. My entire message was addressed to Tomaaz. I finished elaborating on his quotations with the bottom line and continued to comment, from my standpoint, on what he and his partizans were doing scoffing the ex-member in his absence.

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"While you guys are at it." yep. (Sorry to disturb your vacation but this is fun.)

Scoffing is a pitiful sight to see, hardly any fun for a reasonable man.

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I would also have to set them straight if they were saying what a sh*t Mike was. I mean you've got to respect a loyal friend.

I'm almost flattered reading this but on one condition: you should stop shouting in my ears. According to netiquette, capitalization and boldification of text equals yelling and is generally unwelcome among forum members.

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So tell John he can come back (if he wants to), I insist ...

Will do, especially since Paul has also expressed a similar sentiment (hopefully my choice of the word was semantically and situationally correct ;) ).

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I will try to put up with his commercial interruptions ...

And that's the most sensible statement I heard from you in quite a while, I must admit.

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BTW the Indians are looking really good this year, good thing because I think the Cavs are up for a great fall, it may be a long winter.

I used to play basketball for about three years when my parents noticed I kept growing taller by 10 to 12 cm per year and sent me to a sports school. Luckily I stopped growing fast three years later and had a chance to go train my brain rather than muscles.

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Nuff said?  ;)

Hopefully yes.


(I also sincerely hope there were no animals, pets, beginners and language authors killed or harmed in that verbal duel. I recognize people's right to have fun but not at the expense of other people).
« Last Edit: September 26, 2018, 12:23:46 PM by Mike Lobanovsky »

Tomaaz

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #37 on: September 26, 2018, 10:32:36 AM »
Is anyone still interested in this debate? I don't think so.  Mike, post some code, please (or  the music you've created with MuLab).

Aurel

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #38 on: September 26, 2018, 11:03:07 AM »
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Is anyone still interested in this debate? I don't think so

hmmm....do i smell mew moderator here ::)

Mike Lobanovsky

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #39 on: September 26, 2018, 11:08:02 AM »
Thank you for the invitation Tomaaz but no, I don't have fun posting BASIC code any more, or developing BASICs, for that matter.

You can find my code in the OxygenBasic distro, including a Scheme interpreter dialect (OxyScheme) written in O2 alonside Charles Pegge's own non-conformant LISP interpreter. You can evidently still find a LISP (or was it Scheme?) interpreter I ported from QB 4.5 to Script BASIC to get a better command of the latter (ve-e-e-e-ery slow but what would you expect from an interpreter written in another interpreter?). John and I did quite a bit of work extending the TinyScheme 32-bit public domain interpreter project to full 64 bits. And although the FBSL site is now gone, I can still send you the sources of my NanoScheme interpreter written in FBSL BASIC and Dynamic C, if you want. It was blazing fast and almost entirely R5RS conformant (that's a Scheme standard, not the latest but still rather rich in language and standard library features and extensions).

So I do know a lot about the insides of REPL, CAR/CDR, lists, lambdas, and tail recursion. You don't have to provoke me with serpentarian challenges to verify that. It's simply what they call "objective givenness", a rich heritage of many years of interpreter and compiler development experience. :)
« Last Edit: September 26, 2018, 11:20:24 AM by Mike Lobanovsky »

Tomaaz

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #40 on: September 26, 2018, 11:27:35 AM »
Thank you for the invitation Tomaaz but no, I don't have fun posting BASIC code any more, or developing BASICs, for that matter.

So, what are you still doing here??? Is your new hobby about telling us that once you were a great programmer? Or do you have an obsessive disorder that makes you believe that everything here is about you? Paul is here to troll you, I'm here to challenge you, B+ is here to annoy you. I can't speak for others, but you're really not that important to me. And if you are not planning to reply (here and now) to my topics by posting some code, don't do it at all. I'm not interested in your programming past at all. Why would I be?

Mike Lobanovsky

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #41 on: September 26, 2018, 11:58:37 AM »
Is your new hobby about telling us that once you were a great programmer? Or do you have an obsessive disorder that makes you believe that everything here is about you?

Please abstain from bold personal attacks on me, Tomaaz. I didn't do, or intended to do, that to you either on the old BP dot org or here. I thought it was clear from our correspondence, go re-read it again just in case you might have forgotten. "Serpentarian" refers to your Python addiction rather than your other traits or characteristics.

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Don't do it at all.

Excuse me? Did I ask for your advice or assistance in managing my own BASIC environment?

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So, what are you still doing here???

Consider it as sort of phenological interest I might have developed towards the afternoon of my life. ;)

Tomaaz

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #42 on: September 26, 2018, 12:41:19 PM »
Please abstain from bold personal attacks on me, Tomaaz.

Obsessive disorder it is then... Also, I know nothing about "our correspondence". Are you sure you're not taking me for someone else? ???

Quote from: Mike Lobanovsky
Excuse me? Did I ask for your advice or assistance in managing my own BASIC environment?

Did me, Paul or B+ ask for your advice or assistance on anything? No, so why do you keep insisting on giving it? You admit that you neither code nor are interested in programming anymore, but at the same time you are here all the time telling us your patronising stuff.
« Last Edit: September 26, 2018, 12:43:00 PM by Tomaaz »

ZXDunny

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #43 on: September 26, 2018, 01:03:12 PM »
"Serpentarian" refers to your Python addiction rather than your other traits or characteristics.

I think "Herpetological" fits nicely also :)

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Consider it as sort of phenological interest I might have developed towards the afternoon of my life. ;)

Afternoon? Surely that's no so Mike - I thought you were getting in your Hot Cocoa for bedtime :)

Mike Lobanovsky

  • Guest
Re: John's reason for leaving
« Reply #44 on: September 26, 2018, 01:10:20 PM »
Also, I know nothing about "our correspondence". Are you sure you're not taking me for someone else? ???

This one and a few preceding messages qualify for rather respectful and fruitful correspondence, unless you're not the Tomaaz that I thanked for timely advice and assistance. So whose mentality is blurred and out of order, my young friend?

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You admit that you neither code nor are interested in programming anymore, but at the same time you are here all the time ...

Nothing mysterious about it. 'P', like in "phenology", is the reason. Or did I tell you about it already?