[Lowfer] Basic / VB Issues

[Ed Phillips]

Peter Barick wrote:
> 
> Was [Re: [Lowfer] HP 3586b SVM and HPIB/GPIB interface]
> Re: Basic/ Visual Basic Programming
> 
> Hi Ed,
> 
> Saw your perplexity on Basic pgmg issues. Maybe I can offer some
> ideas.
> 
> I'm an employed programmer for business systems using VB. I also use
> Basic for my own stuff, like home projects for my older 386/486s where a
> GUI isn't wanted.
> 
> But to your issue or doing math in Basic or VB, yup ya can. In VB I see
> trig, power, log and sq root fcns in my McFedries VB book [SAMS].
> Further, as in all languages, there are "toolboxes" available for
> esoteric functions of all sorts. If I needed something like that to
> extend a language, I'd chime into an enthusiast group and ask for a
> particular-need ref. there.
> 
> Consider, though, the genealogy, VB is part of a continuum built upon
> Basic. To my knowledge Basic is not being developed, that is now given
> to VB, a GUI managing component of MS office suites. Also, VB is written
> in C and C-do-anything routines can be called for most extreme or
> specialized tasks. But don't let the names confuse, VB can do non-GUI
> pgmng but needs the GUI (Windows) environment to do it. I like it for
> development and the way it can be structured, but all of that calls for
> more overhead that good 'ol Basic doesn't. I prefer QuickBasic, the
> latest by MS.
> 
> Peter

	I appreciate the comments.  I'll try to get McFedries' book and put
more effort into using it.  I'm not a C programmer and at this advanced
age I'm pretty well stuck with Basic or perhaps a little Fortran.  Let
me ask one more question of you.  Is it possible to import complete
BASIC programs into VBASIC, or is it necessary to rewrite the code?

	I'm quite content with using MS Quickbasic on my Mac, where it's pretty
easy to get a decent looking screen.  VBASIC obviously has much more
powerful GUI capabilities, if one is man enough to invoke them!  One
last question.  What's the maximum array size in VBASIC?

Thanks,

Ed