introduction
XBasic is a comprehensive program development environment that integrates a powerful
editor, compiler, debugger, and GuiDesigner into a seamless working environment
encompassing the whole process of creating fast, efficient, reliable programs.
The XBasic language is clean, readable, powerful, and complete. It is more standardized
and portable than C, with a virtual absence of implementation dependent features. The
XBasic compiler translates programs from source form into fast, compact, binary machine
instructions in memory where it is executed and debugged. After they're debugged, XBasic
programs can be translated into assembly language to assemble and link with conventional
tools to make .EXE programs and .DLL libraries.
XBasic is as well suited to novices as programming wizards, and is appropriate for
virtually all programming tasks. For science and engineering XBasic has extensive
math libraries, built-in complex number arithmetic and function library, and very
extensive graphics. For business, XBasic has a 64-bit integer data type,
user-defined types optimized for database I/O. For system programs, XBasic has high
level language replacements for low level programming features that are much easier to
read, understand, and maintain. For all applications, XBasic designed to support
rapid development of compact, efficient, reliable, readable, portable, well structured
programs.
And XBasic is fast.
XBasic provides efficient, high-level mechanisms for just about every programming task.
XBasic programmers never need to resort to cumbersome, error-prone low-level
techniques like pointers and memory allocation. Even for nitty-gritty systems
programming tasks, XBasic provides equally efficient, but more intelligible and reliable
high-level mechanisms.
Best of all, the power, speed, and sophistication of XBasic is integrated in a
comprehensive window environment that makes developing fast, reliable programs quicker and
easier than ever.
XBasic / QuickBasic / VisualBasic
QB/VB translate programs into an intermediate language that is interpreted when the
program is run. In contrast, XBasic translates programs into executable binary
machine instructions which it writes directly into memory, then runs. The XBasic
approach has two major advantages. Programs run quicker, since the CPU is directly
executing machine instructions. And since the same compiler generates programs in
the environment and stand-alone programs, both operate identically.
With XBasic, the assembly language code for each line can examined, variables can be
examined and changed, and arrays and composite variables can be navigated and altered.
The XBasic environment contains an interactive GuiDesigner and library of GUI functions.
This makes writing GUI programs in XBasic faster and easier than programming with
native GUI tools. And the resulting applications are the most portable ever.