Hi Aldweb

In answer to your questions:

=> Would you wait so long?

Yes, definitely.

It's not as if we have nothing at the moment. We currently have the existing version of iziBasic which serves our purposes. Knowing that we will have a very upgraded version in development simply gives us the security to continue to support iziBasic today. With the Wiki progressing and the support from all the current members, I see no reason why anyone would want to drop iziBasic over the next year.

If I believed that iziBasic had hit the end and there would be no further development then I would start to look for another platform, no matter how good I felt iziBasic was. There is a lot of development that is needed (you are highlighting some yourself in your next questions) and I wouldn't be happy if these would never be tackled one day.


=> Then, would you believe that delivering a 68k runtime that would work for up to a version 6.x of iziBasic and an ARM runtime that would for >=7.x versions could be an acceptable option?

Yes. This is pretty much the opinion I expressed in my posting above. I don't believe it should be necessary to continue supporting 68k for much more. By the time you have completed version 7.x I wouldn't have thought there would be many 68k models left. Also, prices would have come down even more by then and I can't see any good reason to not have an Arm device if you want one.


=> As from your experience, are there other real blocking points?

Yes.

Multi-dimensional arrays come to mind, as well as the limited size of the stack which prevents the dimensioning of any decent sized multi-dimensional arrays. I would hope that if we are aiming at Arm devices we can increase the stack substantially, or perhaps iziBasic can utilise main RAM rather than the actual stack.

Another limiting factor is the inability to display large amounts of text. I would normally (using HB++ or other IDE) display a multi-line text field with scroll bar and no underline, and fill it with the text I want. However, the maximum text allowed is 4096 characters using the Megastring. I can use a resource file to display the string, but then it occupies the entire screen with up/down arrows instead.

In fact, the limit on the text strings and even the Megastring is very limiting. Hopefully these can be increased.

These are the only real blocking points I can see as there is no work-around for them. I have a whole list of other issues I would like resolved whilst we're at it, but I wouldn't consider them to be real blocking points.


=> So, the question is: would you go for a features closed iziBasic (without PP applets)? ... even though I think that you will agree that its features' set is quite close to 100% of any standard functional coverage.

I would go for an iziBasic that couldn't use PP applets, especially if you are able to incorporate access to all Palm OS APIs. With the resulting program running native on Arm and access to all APIs, it should be more than able and fast enough to cater for all needs.


So when will you start? I'm already looking forward to next year's Christmas present!