SoftWeb-PDN

Overview: Despite many great advances in web technologies, web sites are still teeming with traditional media tactics.

During a recent meeting of the minds, okay it was really just a few Web-Dev friends and myself sharing adult beverages at a local Gin-mill, the subject of boring web sites became the topic of discussion for the evening.

Our real interest was in the lack of originality behind most sites, our own included. With the steady advancement of high-speed connections among internet surfers, developing an entertaining online data distribution model is more than just possible, the technology is beyond the usage already.

Overview: Expediting and expanding the capabilities of Liberty BASIC with Batch files

I've only come across a few examples in the past of someone using batch files with Liberty BASIC, but Microsoft has provided a treasure of functions which can be run from the command prompt or a batch file, and Liberty BASIC can easily utilize these to expand or improve it's performance.

Here's a simple example for pinging a website to see if it's online or not and how fast the connection is to demonstrate how much easier this can be done with a batch file than by using 3rd party DLL's to connect Liberty BASIC to the Internet: (works on Windows XP, not sure on lower versions as I haven't checked)

Overview: On using BASIC in modern programming.

Since launching this website I've received many contacts from programmers, most were enthusiastic about SoftWeb-PDN being a good centralized resource for information, but a few have been disturbing.

Not that they were rude or mean spirited in any way, but because they questioned and even condemned my use of Liberty BASIC (or any BASIC) when creating software for public release.

I am a firm believer that there's a correct tool for every project, and I do use many different languages, always depending on which one I feel will benefit the project most. Sometimes that means I'll use a language that leads itself to smaller compiled executables or the fastest performance, sometimes it means I'll use the language that I feel will be easiest to accomplish the task at hand or more easy to upgrade and add on to down the road. For me, it's simply a matter of "right tool for the job" mentality.