Comment Feed for Channel 9 - Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic http://ecn.channel9.msdn.com/o9/previewImages/100/453542_100x75.jpg Channel 9 - Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic SmallBasic is a new programming language aimed at beginners. It was created as a side project of Vijaye Raji, a software developer on the Oslo team. SmallBasic is a very limited language with only a handful of keywords and a small set of concepts that should make builing an application on Windows very simple for beginners. However, don't let it's simplicity fool you into thinking that you can't build very compelling applications with it on Windows...Here, programming language designer (and de facto Expert to Expert host) Erik Meijer, Oslo architect Chris Anderson, Vijaye Raji and I discuss the details behind, in between and in front of SmallBasic. Why was it created in the first place? Why the VB-like syntax? What's the goal of the language and runtime, anyway, given that there are already beginning languages out there that run on the Microsoft stack? Why is the language designed in the way that it is? Why is it so popular? How will it evolve? You know, typical Channel 9 questions. We go pretty deep here, but we don't touch bottom. It was a lot of fun taking part in this conversation and I am impressed with SmallBasic and the folks behind it.Tune in. If you want to know the details behind (and in front of) SmallBasic, then this conversation is for you. Enjoy en Thu, 23 May 2013 20:17:50 GMT Thu, 23 May 2013 20:17:50 GMT Rev9 Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic My 9 year old son loves it.

posted by wisemx

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633680780870000000 Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:54:47 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633680780870000000 wisemx Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic
--
Furry cows moo and decompress.

posted by Wyrd

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633680860210000000 Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:07:01 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633680860210000000 Wyrd Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic And we now have proof that VB6 just doesn't want to die. I know this isn't VB6, but it's proof that VB.NET has too steep a learning curve for some of the very beginners.

posted by CRPietschmann

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633680872700000000 Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:27:50 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633680872700000000 CRPietschmann Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic
Why not just create a newer version of VB6?

posted by CRPietschmann

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633680876410000000 Tue, 20 Jan 2009 22:34:01 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633680876410000000 CRPietschmann Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic posted by lynnlangit

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633680927810000000 Tue, 20 Jan 2009 23:59:41 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633680927810000000 lynnlangit Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic Me (to daughter):  Did you do any more chapters in the Small Basic tutorial?
Daughter:  Yes, Daddy, I have a program that will say "Good Morning" if it's the morning, and "Good Evening" if it's night.
Me:  That's great, honey!
Daughter:  Also, if you type in a word, it will display the definition.
Me:  What??!!  [with lots of confusion and a bit of disbelief]  Was that in the same chapter???
Daughter:  No.  I was just playing around.

She showed me the program, and the Dictionary keyword.  I had to disable networking and see it quietly fail (returns nothing for definition) before I could believe it was web-service based dictionary.

Congrats on thinking out of the box and including a web-service enabled uber-function as the 12th most important keyword.
My daughter and I are *both* learning what programming is!

posted by Dan T

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681428620000000 Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:54:22 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681428620000000 Dan T Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic posted by stevo_

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681441940000000 Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:16:34 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681441940000000 stevo_ Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic
C

posted by Charles

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681750560000000 Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:50:56 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681750560000000 Charles Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic You should add some Syntactic sugar to the language

1) So at least rename the TextWindow object to T  ( i.e. the letter T )
and the graphics window to only G
and make the default window to selected automatically or by declaration
I don't want my kids to waste their time in typing long words
compare this :
n = T.Readnumber()
with this
n = TextWindows.Readnumber()

2) Remove redundant brackets  ... for empty arguments !!  so we'd have ...
   Writeln "Hello World"
   instead of
   Writeln("Hello World"

4) add BASIC keywords and GWBASIC ... such as DATA , etc

5) How about simple file handling ( open , read , write  ..) ??

posted by TheLibyanGuy

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681781500000000 Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:42:30 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681781500000000 TheLibyanGuy Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic

posted by jlcard

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681868250000000 Thu, 22 Jan 2009 02:07:05 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681868250000000 jlcard Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic doesn't include...

What I really want is the C# 4+ eval loop that Anders demoed at PDC 2008 in a SmallBasic-esc IDE, not for in-anger work but just for code doodles.

posted by tomkirbygreen

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681939790000000 Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:06:19 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681939790000000 tomkirbygreen Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic

GraphicsWindow.DrawText(20,50, "Loading images...")

For i = 0 To 10
  pic = Flickr.GetRandomPicture("Channel9")
  GraphicsWindow.DrawResizedImage(pic, 0, 0, 640, 480)
EndFor
  
GraphicsWindow.Clear()  
GraphicsWindow.DrawText(20,50, "Done!")

posted by Charles

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681946930000000 Thu, 22 Jan 2009 04:18:13 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633681946930000000 Charles Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic
I wonder what Anders or Paul Vick think of this?

With the regard to this being included in Windows, I for one would love it to be so. It is quite easy to SandBox a lot of the nefarious functionality anyway, so hopefully this can be included in Windows 8 or 9 if it matures well.

posted by vesuvius

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682164040000000 Thu, 22 Jan 2009 10:20:04 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682164040000000 vesuvius Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic posted by stevo_

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682215260000000 Thu, 22 Jan 2009 11:45:26 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682215260000000 stevo_ Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic

posted by tomkirbygreen

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682368760000000 Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:01:16 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682368760000000 tomkirbygreen Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic C

posted by Charles

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682409770000000 Thu, 22 Jan 2009 17:09:37 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682409770000000 Charles Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic

posted by esoteric

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682481450000000 Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:09:05 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682481450000000 esoteric Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic
Great work Vijaye!

posted by finches

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682513310000000 Thu, 22 Jan 2009 20:02:11 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682513310000000 finches Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic Years ago I decided programming wasn't for me, after picking up a C++ book in a college bookstore and realizing it was over my head. This stopped me from going beyond much more than writing simple HTML web pages. But this SmallBasic TRICKED me!! Suddenly I want to program stuff. SmallBasic = Brilliant!!! Thanks for creating it! x10000

posted by DavidD09

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682698540000000 Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:10:54 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682698540000000 DavidD09 Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic Interesting Charles. Are you running on the public 7000 build of Windows 7 and using the public Dev Labs build of SmallBasic? I get the same install error on Windows 7 at home and at work - and both of these boxes are clean installations of Windows 7. Guess I'll have to try popping open the SmallBasic MSI and see if I can't figure out how to put it together by hand...

[Updated]

No need to pop the MSI. It seems that the problem is down to a issue with the CEIP in the Windows 7 Beta. After performing the following official incantations SmallBasic installs beautifully.

An issue with the Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP) client in Windows 7 beta is causing Explorer and some MSI-based installers to stop working properly.

To solve this problem, follow these steps:

Click the Start button , click All Programs, and then click Accessories.

Right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.  In the User Account Control window, verify that Program name is Windows Command Processor, and then click Yes.

In the Administrator: Command Prompt window, type or paste the following text at the prompt:

reg delete HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\SQMClient\Windows\DisabledSessions /va /f

Press Enter to install the solution.

If The operation completed successfully displays, close the Administrator: Command Prompt window to complete this procedure. If "ERROR: Access is denied" displays, repeat this procedure from the top, making sure you clicked Run as administrator in step two.

posted by tomkirbygreen

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682895390000000 Fri, 23 Jan 2009 06:38:59 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633682895390000000 tomkirbygreen Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic
Like that!!

posted by dotnetpower

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633698397090000000 Tue, 10 Feb 2009 05:15:09 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633698397090000000 dotnetpower Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic

posted by NeilSM

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633702848430000000 Sun, 15 Feb 2009 08:54:03 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633702848430000000 NeilSM Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic
InsertLine
Opens the specified file and inserts the contents at the specified line number.
This operation will not overwrite any existing content at the specifid (sic) line.

Should say:
Opens the specified file and inserts the contents before the specified line number.
This operation will not overwrite any existing content at the specified line.
If the selected line number is greater than the number of lines in the file the line will be appended.
If the selected line number is 0 the line will be ignored - no alteration.

Example:
my_return = File.InsertLine("C:\my_file.txt",1,"This is a test " + 1)
TextWindow.WriteLine(my_return)
my_line = File.ReadLine("C:\my_file.txt",1)
TextWindow.WriteLine(my_line)

posted by NeilSM

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633703449510000000 Mon, 16 Feb 2009 01:35:51 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633703449510000000 NeilSM Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic Well, i am used to write code in VS EE and/or other complex Development Environments but when i saw the SmallBasic IDE, i totally lost myself in its simplicity Tongue Out ROFL Despite its simplicity, its a great approach for beginners! But what i miss is a compiler,...Crying

posted by Kareem

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633812756230000000 Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:53:43 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633812756230000000 Kareem Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic I'm with you, in that I love the simplicity of Small Basic. However perhaps you're unaware that it is, in fact, a compiler!  Just look in whatever folder you load your .SB files from, and you should see compiled forms of all your projects!  For instance, I threw together a simple "Pong" clone ( Yeah, I know - why bother, right? ), and I named my project file "pong.sb", so next time I looked in the folder, sure enough - there was "pong.exe", all compiled & ready to go!  I will say Small Basic leaves much to be desired in terms of performance - don't expect blistering execution speed - but it's whole purpose is to serve as a learning tool, not the next "bleeding-edge" C+++++ Uber- development tool.  To that extent, I think it fits the purpose beautifully!

posted by flurng

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633873366990000000 Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:31:39 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c633873366990000000 flurng Re: Expert to Expert: The Basics of SmallBasic posted by Phil Conrod

]]> http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c634208822390000000 Thu, 23 Sep 2010 23:43:59 GMT http://channel9.msdn.com/Blogs/Charles/Expert-to-Expert-The-Basics-of-SmallBasic#c634208822390000000 Phil Conrod