twinBASIC Update: December 2, 2025

On April 23, 2021, I helped Wayne Phillips introduce the world to twinBASIC at the Access DevCon Vienna conference. I boldly predicted that twinBASIC (along with the Monaco editor) would replace VBA and its outdated development environment by 2025. With that goal in mind, this weekly update is my attempt to keep the project fresh in the minds of the VBA development community.

Every ~~Sunday~~ ~~Monday~~ week, I will be providing updates on the status of the project, linking to new articles discussing twinBASIC, and generally trying to increase engagement with the project. If you come across items that should be included here, please leave a comment below.

Here are some links to get involved with the project:

Highlights

twinBASIC Black Friday 2025 Perpetual License Sale

^{** Summarized by Claude-Sonnet-4.5*}

Wayne's annual Black Friday perpetual twinBASIC License sale continues on for a few more days. This is your best opportunity to take advantage of license-only features without needing to purchase a recurring subscription license.

Sale Duration: Available until Friday, December 5th, 2025 (inclusive)

Key Context:

These are pre-orders as twinBASIC is in late-beta development stage
Perpetual licenses are only offered at limited times (Black Friday is the only opportunity outside of conference attendance)
Revenue helps fund final stages of v1 development and 2026 expansion plans
Major versions (v1, v2, v3, etc.) follow an estimated 12-18 month release cycle

Five Perpetual License Tiers Offered

1. Personal Edition v1.x - £99 (+ taxes)

Brand new tier launching December 5th, 2025
Perpetual license covering v1 only
Removes 5-second nag screen from 64-bit executables
Optimizations applied to built-in runtime packages only (user code remains unoptimized)
Commercial use NOT permitted
Non-priority email support (2-3 business day response)
Automated/unattended command-line builds NOT permitted
Single Developer License (max 2 simultaneous installs)
Discord 'Supporter' role (coming December 2025)

2. Professional Edition v1.x - £259 (+ taxes)

Perpetual license covering v1 only
No nag screen
Full optimization enabled (including user code)
Full commercial use permitted
Automated/unattended builds permitted (e.g., build servers, CI pipelines)
Priority email support (2 business day response)
Single Developer License (max 2 simultaneous installs)
Discord 'Supporter' role (coming December 2025)

3. Ultimate Edition v1.x and v2.x - £699 (+ taxes)

Perpetual license covering v1 and v2
Cross-Platform support (work starting in 2026)
Full optimization (user code and built-in packages)
Full commercial use permitted
Automated/unattended builds permitted
Priority email support (1 business day response)
Single Developer License (max 3 simultaneous installs)
Discord 'Supporter' role (coming December 2025)

4. VIP Silver v1.x - v5.x - £1,495 (+ taxes)

Perpetual license covering v1 through v5
All features of Ultimate Edition
Discord 'VIP Silver' role recognition (coming December 2025)
Swag pack (delivered in 2026)
Full commercial use + automated builds permitted
Single Developer License (max 3 simultaneous installs)

5. VIP Gold Lifetime - £4,200 (+ taxes)

Lifetime perpetual license (all future versions)
All features of VIP Silver
'Top-tier' forever license (currently Ultimate Edition)
Includes 20 hours of dedicated support time for prioritized feature development, expedited bug fixes, or personalized one-to-one support
Discord 'VIP Gold' role recognition (coming December 2025)
Premium swag pack (delivered in 2026)
Single Developer License (max 3 simultaneous installs)

Additional Pricing Options

Prices are shown in four currencies: GBP £, EUR €, USD $, and AUD $

Payment methods accepted:

PayPal (including card payments)
Wise (including card payments)
Bank transfers

Existing Customer Discounts

The page notes that existing customers of twinBASIC or EverythingAccess can access further discounts by clicking a specific link, though the exact discount amounts are not specified on the main page.

Community Edition (Free - Always Available)

For comparison, the free Community Edition:

Perpetual v1 license
Commercial use permitted
5-second nag screen in 64-bit builds
No optimizations
Automated builds not permitted
Support via Discord only

twinBASIC Roadmap Update Summary

^{*Summarized by Claude-Sonnet-4.5}

On December 2nd, 2025, Wayne Phillips published a significant update to the twinBASIC 12-month roadmap, marking the first major revision since July 8th, 2025. The update reflects both delays and strategic repositioning as the project transitions to its new incorporated company structure (TWINBASIC LTD).

Key Timeline Changes

Version 1.0 Release Delayed by 2-3 Months:

Previous target: December 19, 2025
New Release Candidate date: February 19, 2026
New Release date: March 19, 2026

The delay was acknowledged in Discord discussions when wartale asked about the December release, and Wayne confirmed they were "a little behind (max 2 months)" before updating the official roadmap.

Major Milestone Additions

External Source File Support - Added to 2025-Q4/2026-Q1 deliverables in response to community feedback from franic1456, who specifically requested text-based external files for version control compatibility. This feature enables:

Text-only twinproj files similar to VB6's .vbp format
External modules and forms as separate text files
Proper diff, branch, and merge operations in version control systems

Progress Indicators Added - Several items now show completion status:

Mnemonics support: "almost finished"
UserControl property pages support: "almost finished"
App object methods: "in progress"

Architectural Achievements

Wayne noted that full inheritance support was brought forward from a later quarter and is now "fully implemented," providing a stronger foundation for subsequent features. This represents a significant architectural milestone that was previously scheduled for 2026-Q1 but was completed early.

Roadmap Restructuring

The quarterly breakdown was reorganized:

2025-Q4/2026-Q1 (DEC-MAR) now includes:

General bug-fixing and compatibility improvements
Completion of intrinsic control properties and methods
External source file support (NEW to the roadmap; was always promised for v1)
Mnemonics support (almost finished)
UserControl property pages (almost finished)
Partial-recompilation support
Out-of-process debugging (for debugging ActiveX DLLs)
LLVM optimized compilation (paid subscribers only)
App object methods completion
v1 Release Candidate builds

2026-Q2 (APR-JUN) features moved from Q1:

IDE features (rename-refactoring, Test Explorer)
Analysis Extension API
Full vbWatchdog support
Multi-threading syntax support
x86/x64 Linux/Mac cross-platform support (Ultimate Edition only)

2026-Q3 (JUL-SEP) remains focused on:

ARM Linux/Mac/Android cross-platform support (Ultimate Edition only)
VB6 shipped controls reimplementation (Winsock, MAPI, Adodc, DataGrid, MSCOMM, etc.)
ActiveX control proxy-process support for mismatched bitness

Company Transition Impact

The roadmap update acknowledges that the incorporation process "undoubtedly slowed us down" but emphasizes it provides "the right long-term footing to provide a stable, sustainable future for twinBASIC." This corporate restructuring to TWINBASIC LTD (Company No. 16590181, VAT No. GB497509439) represents a maturation of the project from individual development to formal business entity.

Community Response

The December 2nd update was well-received, with Wayne thanking Black Friday purchasers for their support in funding "the next stages of development and our expansion plans going into 2026." The external file support addition directly addressed concerns raised by franic1456 and other community members about professional version control integration.

Discord Chat Summary

^{* Auto-generated via Claude-Sonnet-4.5}

Overview

The week of November 27 - December 2, 2025 saw intense activity around twinBASIC's Black Friday sale launch, offering perpetual licenses at discounted rates alongside subscription tiers. Wayne Phillips unveiled an ambitious long-term roadmap extending through version 5, sparking community discussion about future features including WASM support, VBA integration, and native debugging. Technical conversations explored UDT enhancements, WinRT metadata parsing challenges, and the fundamental differences between twinBASIC's memory model and .NET's managed approach.

Black Friday Launch & Licensing

Wayne Phillips launched the annual Black Friday perpetual license sale with new Personal Edition and VIP Silver tiers alongside existing options, with pricing valid through December 5th
The sale offers version-tied perpetual licenses (v1, v1+v2, v1-v5) at discounted rates, representing the only opportunity to purchase perpetual licenses outside of conference attendance
Community response was enthusiastic, with multiple members purchasing licenses including yereverluvinunclebert and vb6programming acquiring perpetual editions
Wayne clarified that upgrade discounts will always be available for existing license holders, with the webpage updated to better highlight existing customer upgrade offers

Long-Term Roadmap & Feature Vision

Wayne revealed plans extending to version 5.x with expected 12-18 month release cycles per major version, including automated performance profiling, native code debugging, WASM support, AI-assisted development, integrated Git/version control, better WinRT support (winmd parsing), and VBA integration
WASM support generated significant excitement as it would enable web development without traditional Linux UI fragmentation concerns
The roadmap was officially updated on December 2nd, adding external file support as a v1.0 milestone after community feedback from franic1456
VBA integration (marked "TBA") was discussed by mansellan as strategically important, noting concerns about Microsoft's long-term VBA support, though no official deprecation has been announced

UDT Enhancements & Technical Innovation

VanGoghGaming demonstrated enhanced UDT capabilities with a new GUID/UUID type featuring embedded methods including IsEqualGUID, StringFromIID, Empty(), GuidString property, and equality checking
Wayne highlighted the Type_DebugView feature for improved debugging experience in the variables panel, suggesting additions like Generate() using CoCreateGuid() and registry lookups via ProgIDFromCLSID()
fullvaluerider celebrated the new TYPE_ASSIGNMENT operator enabling direct assignment of LongPtr values to UDT instances, simplifying pointer-based code
Community discovered UDT limitations including inability to use CType(Of UUID)(Ptr) results directly in With blocks and issues with generic functions in UDTs causing compiler crash loops

WinRT & Metadata Challenges

Extended discussion on WinRT metadata (winmd) parsing revealed the complexity of implementing proper reflection support, with the binary format following ECMA-335 specification (same as .NET assemblies)
VanGoghGaming noted that winmd parsing would eliminate the need to explicitly declare interfaces, retrieving them dynamically instead
The conversation highlighted fundamental differences between COM's limited reflection via typelibs versus .NET's comprehensive metadata system
Community consensus emerged that proper metadata/reflection support is essential for modern features like JSON serialization, dependency injection, and cross-platform development

Community Support & Development

sniperhgy received assistance from VanGoghGaming in porting twinBASIC code to VBA, learning about vbNullPtr constant definition and proper OrElse to ElseIf conversion patterns
glevz investigated potential recursion issues with intrinsic functions (Mid$, Left$, Len) with datinex offering VB6 testing assistance across multiple Windows versions
braja_07733 from Indonesia purchased a license and received guidance on UserControl PropBag default values, discovering VB6 compatibility quirks
Discussion of AI-assisted coding ("vibe coding") sparked debate about code quality, with consensus that AI is useful for research and boilerplate but requires human expertise for complex tasks

IDE & Tooling Improvements

Bug reports included automatic saves triggered by breakpoint operations in packages and ghosted license entry menu when no project is loaded
Community noted the confusing similarity between "WinDevLib" and "WinDevLib for Implements" package names
flurreey received guidance on importing TLB files via References > Import from file rather than requiring registration
Discussion of string function variants (Mid$ vs Mid) emphasized performance benefits of explicit string-returning versions avoiding Variant conversions

Conclusion

This week marked a significant moment for twinBASIC with the Black Friday perpetual license sale generating strong community support and funding for future development. Wayne's revelation of the extended roadmap through version 5 demonstrates ambitious long-term vision, particularly around WASM for web development and eventual VBA integration to position twinBASIC as a potential successor to VBA. The technical discussions around UDT enhancements, WinRT metadata parsing, and reflection capabilities show the community grappling with how to bring modern language features to a VB6-compatible foundation while maintaining deterministic memory management. The balance between preserving VB6 compatibility and adding cutting-edge features like spans, ref types, and proper metadata continues to drive both excitement and technical challenges as the project moves toward v1.0 release in early 2026.

Changelog

Here are the updates from the past week. You can also find this information by visiting the GitHub twinBASIC Releases page.

Releases · WaynePhillipsEA/twinbasic

Contribute to WaynePhillipsEA/twinbasic development by creating an account on GitHub.

GitHubWaynePhillipsEA

No new releases this week.