New features of Liberty BASIC v4.5.0

This exciting new release of Liberty BASIC increases memory available 14x over the previous version, adds new string functions, the ability to fetch web pages, and new code editor enhancements.  Download your copy now!  Click here.

New features of Liberty BASIC v4.5.0

• Memory space raised to 1GB from 70MB
• Ctrl+click on a branch label or SUB name to jump to that place in the code
• Double click on a variable name or handle to highlight other occurences of that item in yellow
• New httpget$() function so now you can get a file from a webserver without API calls
• New string functions make it easier to do some things and with faster performance.
  • upto$(sourceString$, search$
  • after$(sourceString$, search$
  • afterlast$(sourceString$, search$)
  • endswith(sourceString$, search$)
  • remchar$(sourceString$, removeThese$)
• Removed arbitrary limitations on the baud rates that can be specified when opening a serial port.
• Upgraded to NTPort v2.8 from v2.3 to add compatibility for 64-bit versions of Windows.
• The Liberty BASIC editor now remembers its size and location when you start LB.
• Added a filter bad characters feature in the LB editor help the compiler, especially when code is pasted in from a web browser.
• Increased the FILEDIALOG length of the file path from 128 to 260 which is the Windows file dialog maximum path length.
• Added FIND, FINDBACK, and RESETFIND commands to the text window and texteditor control.
• Added !backcolor and !forecolor commands to texteditor controls and text windows
• Several bug fixes

Earth shaking!

Here's a neat example of BASIC programming which plots earthquake data graphically.  What's cool about this is that it demonstrates graphics, interfacing with VBScript, and getting information off the Internet.  Add to this that it's not a large program.

  Read about it here.

Net Neutrality

I'm not an especially political person, but Net Neutrality is an important idea that deserves all of our attention. Essentially since the Internet was recently deregulated, broadband providers are now allowed to prioritize and block traffic. Imagine if suddenly you were unable to Skype your best friend in another country, or if Google became inaccessible to you. What if the online community in a message forum you came to know and love was destroyed because access to it was now impractical to certain key members? What if an online business was suddenly destroyed because they no longer received the visitor traffic they once did?

Net Neutrality is a movement to protect free and unhindered access to Internet resources.

Ethan Poole wrote an excellent article about it here:
http://www.lowter.com/article/net-neutrality/2

Web Programming for Fun

There has always been a culture of complexity-worship in the programming community. Some people seem to think that the Internet is a good excuse to take this even farther. This takes the fun out of programming, and it scares a lot of people away from even trying it. We think that this needs to be pushed back against. One of our goals in creating Run BASIC has been to make web development so easy that anyone can do it. As a language designed to make programming simple, BASIC is an ideal platform for realizing this idea.

We need a culture of simplicity. The computer should do that hard stuff for you. For example web application servers manage user sessions and processes, and these are things that require special administration by an expert in most web systems. With Run BASIC, except for a couple of fields in the Preferences tab that let you configure how long the timeouts are for sessions and processes, you don't really need to know anything about these. It's all done for you automatically.

Or for example let's say you want to draw graphics? There are no add-ons that you have to locate, download, and install with Run BASIC. It's all built right in, and just a few lines of code can draw some meaningful graphics into your web apps.

It's easy, and it's fun.