DOS Games Discussion

What the difference between the two?

QB is mainly DOS, VB windows.

but they are completely different: they have a few similarities, but can basically be thought of as different programming languages.

There is a VB version for DOS.

Qbasic is 16 bit. It uses an ide that was quite advanced for it's time. (realtime error checking, fixes syntax, etc. etc.) It is a slow, very easy to learn programming language. Quite famous for it's easy, but slow built in gfx commands. Not practical for anything, save learning to program. Freebasic does anything qb does, and it's much faster. Very close to 100% syntax compatible. (faster than powerbasic.) And it's gfx statements beat out allegro in speed tests.

Visual Basic is best for making quick forms. Similiar syntax to Qbasic, but each version of Visual Basic is increasingly less like Qbasic. Not best choice for graphical program.s

Qbasic is not 16 bit!
It can build 64 bit appilcations - but i wouldnt recommend you making one - because it would take u longer than ur life.
It has no debugging(error checking) - although u can build one.
Althuogh it did have a syntax errors or devide by zero errors, time out errors - basic syntax and calculator errors.

QBasic (QB) - is a spaghetti language. What that means: Language that is a qurey langauge but with "Sub"s and "Goto sub"s that means it has no functions and the game had to be written in one long pieace of code and u could call a sub - that means Jump to a location in the code where a # sub was located. This code was named spaghetti because the code ran up and down the lines - meaning it went to a sub somewhere in the code.

Visual Basic (VB) - Its a visual OOP(Object Oriented Programming - made in 1974) language. With user functions, visual controls such as buttons, windows, and others. It was useful for windows applications and NOT for games.

sorcerdon do some research before you make post like that.

Qbasic is a 16bit realmode programming lang

if you talking about doing 64bit numeric calulation yes you could do that is you made your own emulation function to do the calulations. but there no way QB will ever be able to use X86-64 opcode's even with asm you can't do since qb will not operated in protected mode.

also QB is procedural language yes there go gosub but there also Fuction's
i.e.
Declare function Foo(X as interger , Y as interger) as integer

also GOSUB isn't extreamly bad even with a moderday compiler like Freebasic
since in function you have to PUSH all your arguments onto the stack with a GOSUB all you have to is push a return address to the stack so it's faster then a function call.

also visual basic is not a OOP lang i has some aspects of OO but it not a true OO lang tecniqley C++ not a true OO lang ether since you can do thing proceduraly.
VB.NET is a true OO lang makes you use object for everything.

oh debugging QB has some very good debuging tools like code step though break point's ect varible tracking.

Both QB and VB are good beginner languages- VB for windows apps with forms, buttons and GUI stuff.. QB for folks who love dos games. The problem with QB is you need to fork out £££ for a compiler to make .exe files.

I dont concur..

i personally think VB is NOT for beginners.. I mean you gotta know how to use the damn thing before you can use it. Besides you need to pay $$$ for the software and the manual doesnt really make much sense. Also if there is an error and for somereason you never got the book then MSDN costs you an extra like $50 .

I havent used QB but yeah

People who program in visual basic should consider moving to REALbasic www.realsoftware.com . Tis much more fun in my opinion, + you can compile your programs to work with macs and under linux aswell.

Hmm In my opinion switch to java for a few monts then c++- java first to ease the leanring curve