twinBASIC Update: October 29, 2024

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 I boldly predicted that twinBASIC (along with the Monaco editor) would replace VBA and its outdated development environment by 2025.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:

• Custom twinBASIC IDE Installation Guide
• twinBASIC Discord Server (chat about the project)
• twinBASIC Wiki (list of new features not in VBx)
• GitHub Issue Tracker (report bugs)
• twinBASIC/VBx LinkedIn Group

Highlights

All Quiet on the twinBASIC Front

No new releases this week. Wayne dipped into the Discord server a few times, but no new progress updates. The last we heard from him is that he is working on low-level form compatibility between twinBASIC and VB6. I think it's safe to assume that project is still underway.

Discord Chat Summary

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The past week in twinBASIC development saw discussions ranging from IDE debugging features to language design considerations, particularly around the implementation of unions and COM interfaces. Here's a summary of the key developments and discussions from October 22-29, 2024.

Key Points:

• A significant discussion emerged around implementing unions in twinBASIC, with developers comparing approaches from C, C#, and other languages. The syntax proposal Begin Union gained traction as a VB-style solution that wouldn't break compatibility:

Type foo
    Begin Union u
      Type s1
        a As Long
        b As Long
      Type s2
        b As LongLong
      End Type
    End Union
End Type

• Debugging tool windows in twinBASIC was clarified - they are implemented as ActiveX controls and can be tested by adding them to regular Windows Forms, with preview capability in the IDE or through the Debug Console.

• An important IDE bug was identified where multi-line text output in the Debug Console gets "clumped" together, making it difficult to scroll and view the beginning of long outputs.

• Discussion about COM interfaces revealed potential opportunities for twinBASIC to leverage COM's runtime extensibility features, with suggestions for a dedicated language design channel to discuss such features.

• A working solution for pipe communication between processes was developed and shared, helping developers implement inter-process communication in their applications.

The week's discussions highlighted twinBASIC's ongoing evolution, particularly in areas where it can differentiate itself from other languages while maintaining compatibility with VB6. The focus on unions and COM interfaces shows the community's interest in advancing the language while preserving its BASIC roots and COM integration capabilities.

Around the Web

UK AUG Conference - 20 November 2024

The UK Access User Group fall conference is just a few weeks away.

Join me in person (!) in Oxford, where I'll share exciting developments in the twinBASIC ecosystem. I'm particularly thrilled to demonstrate the highly anticipated "twinBASIC for Applications" feature that could revolutionize how Access developers work.

The conference features an outstanding lineup of speakers:

• Steve Girling will present an Access-to-Xero integration guide and showcase a powerful listbox alternative.
• Anders Ebro (The Smiley Coder) will demystify class modules with real-world applications.
• Peter Bryant will explore Microsoft Graph APIs for Office 365 integration, particularly timely given the upcoming changes to Outlook automation.

Conference host Rod Gordon will also chair a panel discussion on Access's future where–among other topics–we'll explore twinBASIC's potential role in shaping the Access development landscape.

The conference runs from 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM at the Faculty of History, University of Oxford. Tickets are £130 for non-members, which includes a complimentary one-year UKAUG membership–an excellent value that gives you member pricing for future events, including the upcoming spring conference. Current members can attend for £65.

Register now (scroll to the bottom of the page to register and purchase tickets).

Changelog

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

No new releases this week.