Yes, your point is well taken. Since SimpleIDE is going Spinny, maybe they should get rid of PropGCC, and those crazy supporters, then they will have room for PropBASIC. A while back, Parallax was considering Eclipse, maybe bean should start investigating that route for PropBASIC, unless of course the Eclipse thing has become a dead issue.
Yes, your point is well taken. Since SimpleIDE is going Spinny, maybe they should get rid of PropGCC, and those crazy supporters, then they will have room for PropBASIC. A while back, Parallax was considering Eclipse, maybe bean should start investigating that route for PropBASIC, unless of course the Eclipse thing has become a dead issue.
Ray
ummm... somehow you lost me with this comment. Of course, maybe I'm one of "those crazy supporters"! :-)
Isn't SimpleIDE is supposed to be a simple IDE for propgcc in the style of the simplicity of the Arduino IDE. It's already burdened down with Spin and a billion request for features.
Interestingly, people seem to want to get rid of the "project" faciltity in SimpleIDE to make it simpler but the Arduino IDE has the concept of a "sketch" which really isn't much different than a "project" and that doesn't seem to make it so complex that people can't use it.
Parallax was considering Eclipse, maybe bean should start investigating that route for PropBASIC, unless of course the Eclipse thing has become a dead issue.
Ray
Eclipse seems a bulky way to go. The idea fills me with horror!! Urgghh.!!
We have viewport which is already a fairly rounded and maintained IDE and does everything needed for PropBasic. I do not understand why alternatives are even being discussed. Is it because Viewport is not Free... is that the issue? Or is it failing in some other area that I have not experienced? That said, I thought there was some talk of a limited free version. Would seem to make sense, to get people "hooked"... not sure if Hanno ever released such a version.
We also have simple editors such as notepad++ and now Geany is mentioned too (will have a look). From these you can compile at the command line using the simple commands mentioned by Bean above.
So really I don't see where PropBasic is lacking IDE wise. Only it would be "nice to be included" in the official IDE, and it seems that it a real possibility later once SimpleIDE finds its feet.
"nice to be included"...
I admit to having the same discomfort as mentioned above about the apparent lack of support for PropBasic in the "official" circles. Seemingly not just recently sidelined by GCC, but rather the outcast since day one. Certainly a world away from where SX/B was at. Given the huge efforts and obvious ongoing dedication from Bean, and also historically supported by JonnyMac with documentation, it indeed seems surprising that this was not an effort which was encouraged and supported to grow in a similar way that the GCC/SimpleIDE effort now seems to be attracting such focus.
Whilst I cannot believe I am the only developer on this planet who prefers PropBasic to Spin, and who only uses the Propeller because of PropBasic, and prefers the fact that PropBasic code runs FASTER (among many other positive reasons to use PropBasic), I suppose there must have been some compelling reasons keeping PropBasic outside the circle. And in this case it might be appropriate for PropBasic to market itself. Even bundle itself with VP and sell itself as an alternative compiler, free up to ~100 lines and 2 tasks, then a small fee thereafter to help encourage onward development. With access to a library of PropBasic standard functions and documentation, it could be a success in certain markets- like what the Axe did for Pic. Go Go PropAxe !
I admit to having the same discomfort as mentioned above about the apparent lack of support for PropBasic in the "official" circles.
It surprises me some as well. You'd think that SpinStamp+PropBasic would be a good migration path for BasicStamp users. However, I see that the SpinStamp is being discontinued now too.
I'm with you there. Those XMOS guys make me use Eclipse for their chips, too big too complex too slow, needs Java, blech. You would not want to be like XMOS now would you Parallax.
Maxwin,
Viewport is very good by all accounts. However unless it is cross platform and can run on all my Linux machines it's not very useful.
Free is as in no money is not the issue, the issue is closed source and single supplier. Which leads to the problem above.
I thought there was some talk of a limited free version. Would seem to make sense, to get people "hooked"..
Exactly, we don't want to be "hooked" on a product from a single supplier, with no source code, with no chance of being cross platform, with no chance of being able to tweak it to our purposes. We have already lived that life with MicroSoft for far to long. One of the driving forces behind the success of the Arduino project is the open source nature of it hardware and software tools.
I too thought that SimpleIDE would (or could) allow external command line compilers. Much like geany. That is all I was asking for.
As I have said, it certainly "would be nice" if PropBasic was supported by an offical Parallax IDE, I certainly would not want to force the issue in any way.
Parallax was very kind to support the efforts of SX/B (the forefather of PropBasic) and I appreciate it. I put much effort into creating PropBasic in the hopes that Parallax would like it and support it. That hasn't happened, but I hold no malice toward Parallax. It was a labor of love. I'm am just glad that others are using it and enjoy it.
I am not skilled at writing GUI programs. So I would have no hope of writing an IDE for PropBasic.
BTW: PropBasic is written in Delphi 7 and can be (with some minor changes) be compiled in Lazarus for the Mac and Linux. BradC did this for BST.
Anyway, I do not want any kind of battle to try to force anyone to include PropBasic in their IDE. If anyone WANTS to use it, I would certainly be willing to help.
The problem with using /Q is that if there is an error you will not know what it is or where it is...
Yeah, good for now. But would still like to get PropBasic supported the "official" Parallax IDE sometime.
Bean
I understand. I'm glad Geany is working for now. It is possible to make packages for all major platforms. A custom PropBasic Windows installer is a 5 minute job with InnoIDE - the enthusiasm of users here should make testing easy too.
SX/B was a very nice programming environment. I used it often before Propeller was released.
Integrating PropBasic in SimpleIDE shouldn't be a problem in the future; however, at the moment my hands are very full trying to meed some Parallax requirements.
I also +1 for some official Parallax support for PropBASIC and the work Bean has done. Seems BASIC just ain't as sexy as C (but it sure does get the job done quicker and more clearly - just look at what C requires just to blink a LED!).
Whilst I don't get to program my Prop very often, when I do it's with PropBASIC and I thank Bean very much for creating and supporting it.
I've always liked the idea behind Eclipse, but I do not like the implementation. Code::Blocks has always seemed very nice to me, and CodeLite is probably a little nicer yet, though it's attached to C++ pretty firmly (I think).
We were never able to verify the layout due to problems in our layout-versus-schematic tool. So, we can't fabricate it with assurance that the layout is okay. At this point, if we were to make another 0.35um Propeller chip, we'd probably use synthesis to incorporate some design improvements and make things faster (MHz-wise). I suppose that with the kind of tools we've been designing Prop II with, we could get a Prop I redo going 50% faster (120MHz, instead of 80MHz).
I think a version of the Prop I that had more pins and more speed would be terrific, especially if it maintained its low power consumption. Do others see this as valuable?
Interestingly, people seem to want to get rid of the "project" faciltity in SimpleIDE to make it simpler but the Arduino IDE has the concept of a "sketch" which really isn't much different than a "project" and that doesn't seem to make it so complex that people can't use it.
Not me. I think it should be option but I think the concept of a "project" is an important construct in programming. It's especially important for spin where objects are required to be in their own files.
I'm with you there. Those XMOS guys make me use Eclipse for their chips, too big too complex too slow, needs Java, blech. You would not want to be like XMOS now would you Parallax.
Maxwin,
Viewport is very good by all accounts. However unless it is cross platform and can run on all my Linux machines it's not very useful.
Free is as in no money is not the issue, the issue is closed source and single supplier. Which leads to the problem above.
Exactly, we don't want to be "hooked" on a product from a single supplier, with no source code, with no chance of being cross platform, with no chance of being able to tweak it to our purposes. We have already lived that life with MicroSoft for far to long. One of the driving forces behind the success of the Arduino project is the open source nature of it hardware and software tools.
To my knowledge viewport doesn't work under linux. There was an attempt to get it to work but I never had any luck with getting it to work.
Comments
Ray
Ray
That takes current Propeller Programming from the sublime to the ridiculous!
Eclipse seems a bulky way to go. The idea fills me with horror!! Urgghh.!!
We have viewport which is already a fairly rounded and maintained IDE and does everything needed for PropBasic. I do not understand why alternatives are even being discussed. Is it because Viewport is not Free... is that the issue? Or is it failing in some other area that I have not experienced? That said, I thought there was some talk of a limited free version. Would seem to make sense, to get people "hooked"... not sure if Hanno ever released such a version.
We also have simple editors such as notepad++ and now Geany is mentioned too (will have a look). From these you can compile at the command line using the simple commands mentioned by Bean above.
So really I don't see where PropBasic is lacking IDE wise. Only it would be "nice to be included" in the official IDE, and it seems that it a real possibility later once SimpleIDE finds its feet.
"nice to be included"...
I admit to having the same discomfort as mentioned above about the apparent lack of support for PropBasic in the "official" circles. Seemingly not just recently sidelined by GCC, but rather the outcast since day one. Certainly a world away from where SX/B was at. Given the huge efforts and obvious ongoing dedication from Bean, and also historically supported by JonnyMac with documentation, it indeed seems surprising that this was not an effort which was encouraged and supported to grow in a similar way that the GCC/SimpleIDE effort now seems to be attracting such focus.
Whilst I cannot believe I am the only developer on this planet who prefers PropBasic to Spin, and who only uses the Propeller because of PropBasic, and prefers the fact that PropBasic code runs FASTER (among many other positive reasons to use PropBasic), I suppose there must have been some compelling reasons keeping PropBasic outside the circle. And in this case it might be appropriate for PropBasic to market itself. Even bundle itself with VP and sell itself as an alternative compiler, free up to ~100 lines and 2 tasks, then a small fee thereafter to help encourage onward development. With access to a library of PropBasic standard functions and documentation, it could be a success in certain markets- like what the Axe did for Pic. Go Go PropAxe !
I'm with you there. Those XMOS guys make me use Eclipse for their chips, too big too complex too slow, needs Java, blech. You would not want to be like XMOS now would you Parallax.
Maxwin,
Viewport is very good by all accounts. However unless it is cross platform and can run on all my Linux machines it's not very useful.
Free is as in no money is not the issue, the issue is closed source and single supplier. Which leads to the problem above.
Exactly, we don't want to be "hooked" on a product from a single supplier, with no source code, with no chance of being cross platform, with no chance of being able to tweak it to our purposes. We have already lived that life with MicroSoft for far to long. One of the driving forces behind the success of the Arduino project is the open source nature of it hardware and software tools.
As I have said, it certainly "would be nice" if PropBasic was supported by an offical Parallax IDE, I certainly would not want to force the issue in any way.
Parallax was very kind to support the efforts of SX/B (the forefather of PropBasic) and I appreciate it. I put much effort into creating PropBasic in the hopes that Parallax would like it and support it. That hasn't happened, but I hold no malice toward Parallax. It was a labor of love. I'm am just glad that others are using it and enjoy it.
I am not skilled at writing GUI programs. So I would have no hope of writing an IDE for PropBasic.
BTW: PropBasic is written in Delphi 7 and can be (with some minor changes) be compiled in Lazarus for the Mac and Linux. BradC did this for BST.
Anyway, I do not want any kind of battle to try to force anyone to include PropBasic in their IDE. If anyone WANTS to use it, I would certainly be willing to help.
Bean
Cheers.
I understand. I'm glad Geany is working for now. It is possible to make packages for all major platforms. A custom PropBasic Windows installer is a 5 minute job with InnoIDE - the enthusiasm of users here should make testing easy too.
SX/B was a very nice programming environment. I used it often before Propeller was released.
Integrating PropBasic in SimpleIDE shouldn't be a problem in the future; however, at the moment my hands are very full trying to meed some Parallax requirements.
--Steve
Whilst I don't get to program my Prop very often, when I do it's with PropBASIC and I thank Bean very much for creating and supporting it.
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php?143050-PropBASIC-status
I wonder if there is we could return this thread to the original topic and Chip's comments:
I think a version of the Prop I that had more pins and more speed would be terrific, especially if it maintained its low power consumption. Do others see this as valuable?
Not me. I think it should be option but I think the concept of a "project" is an important construct in programming. It's especially important for spin where objects are required to be in their own files.
To my knowledge viewport doesn't work under linux. There was an attempt to get it to work but I never had any luck with getting it to work.