twinBASIC Update: September 2, 2024

Highlights include bated breath, cautious optimism, sayings of sooth, and pithily proffered prognostications.

Mike Wolfe

Sep 2, 2024 • 3 min read

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 I boldly predicted that twinBASIC (along with the Monaco editor) would replace VBA and its outdated development environment by 2025.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

Something Big is Coming...Tomorrow?

It's been an eerily quiet few weeks in twinBASIC world. That could change soon:

Of course, by the time you read this, "Tomorrow" could be "Today." Or it might even be in the past.

Time is funny that way.

Something Even Bigger is Coming...This Year?

[DTZ]: Wayne, ... [h]ow do you see the possible timeframe to a working ready, vb6 compatible v1? Is it possible in 2025?
[Wayne]: For sure, the roadmap target of Oct 1st is going to be missed. However, my belief and aim is to get v1 out of the door in 2024, even if that means New Years Eve

Discord Chat Summary

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Here's a summary of the key points from the twinBASIC Discord general channel transcript for the week of August 24-31, 2024:

The twinBASIC project continues to make progress towards its first major release, with developers discussing various features and improvements. Here are the main highlights:

Release timeline: The project lead, Wayne Phillips, confirmed that while the October 1st roadmap target will be missed, the aim is still to release v1 before the end of 2024.
Unsigned integers: Support for unsigned integers is planned for the v1 cycle, though not in the initial v1 release. They are described as not difficult to implement but requiring significant testing.
Generics: Current implementation is closer to C++ templates than .NET generics. They currently lack features like co/contra variance, constraints, and full intellisense support. There's ongoing discussion about improving and documenting generics for future versions.
Shell extensions: There's interest in creating 64-bit shell extension demos using twinBASIC, which would be impossible with VB6 due to 64-bit Windows limitations.
Type inference: Discussions are ongoing about the syntax for type inference, with suggestions including a From keyword (e.g., Dim X From createLog.IgnoreBla(False)).
User controls: There are some issues with property persistence when using Implements WithEvents...Via to wrap one user control in another.
Native exceptions: Some users reported experiencing native exceptions, which appear to be crashes in generated code rather than user code.
Community engagement: The project is gaining attention, as evidenced by spam attempts on both Discord and GitHub, which the moderators are actively managing.

In conclusion, twinBASIC is making steady progress towards its v1 release, with active discussions on language features, syntax improvements, and practical applications. The community remains engaged, contributing ideas and reporting issues, which bodes well for the project's continued development and refinement.

Around the Web

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 past week.

Everything is quiet. Maybe a little too quiet...