07-27-2024, 06:50 AM
I don't know it is a coincidence but today I saw a post in small basic enthusiasm group someone asked is small basic dead and Vijay rajiee reply to it that he is keeping import export feature still available.
Is Small Basic dead?
In last Feb, I was searching for a publisher for my book about Small Visual Basic for 6 years old. I think this particular reply from Philip Conrod, the president & publisher of Kidware Software LLC may show you where Small Basic is right now. This is only a part of his reply regarding SB and sVB, while the rest of his replay was about issues related to VB6 and VB .NET:
"Thank you for your email. I found your video on Small Visual Basic very educational and interesting. I plan to download your IDE and play around with it. Looks very cool! I love that you added a Designer with Windows Forms capabilities.
Unfortunately, Microsoft stopped promoting Small Basic and the sales for our Microsoft Small Basic books have gone to almost zero in the last couple of years. Without a big company like Microsoft continually promoting a kid friendly IDE (like Small Basic) there is not enough of a "paying" market to sustain and grow a paperback academic curriculum for a new IDE. With that said, I like what you have done so far and I hope to see Small Visual Basic grow."
And this is a part of my reply:
" Hi, Philip:
Thank you for this fast, honest and detailed reply.
Regarding Small Basic issues, Small Basic is loosing the battle against Scratch and Python in the last decade, due to some possible reasons:
1. Scratch and Python are growing and getting more popularity, while SB has no new features since 2013, even bugs are not fixed!
2. SB runs only on windows (which is still a big issue in sVB that I hope to fix in the future).
3. MS is steadily killing VB .NET since 2014, which gave Python the freedom to fill the void as the next easiest language on the planet. MS is actually executing the whole VB family (VBA, VBScript), which is giving python script the power to take over office applications!
4. SB itself is not perfect. I tried to teach it to my nephews and Arabic kids via a series of videos, but I felt that the easy part is not interesting, and the interesting part is not easy! This is when I suggested to the SB team to create Visual Small Basic (which I renamed Small Visual Basic later), but they didn't care, so, I played with a proof of concept shall it convince them, before realizing that I have to complete the project myself!"
Now, my question for Small Basic enthusiasts:
What do you think about that?
What should we do to attract kids to Basic again whatever they like to start with (Small Basic, Small Visual Basic, TwinBasic, VB .NET, ModVB)?
Or should we give up and move on to C# or Python?
Vijaye Raji
Admin
Philip is right and Microsoft might not be promoting Small Basic. However that doesn’t mean the language and the IDE are dead. I am still committed to keeping the import/export service running for Small Basic.
There’s nothing stopping people from using it to learn and enjoy programming. Hope this community can sustain itself without needing promotion from Microsoft
Is Small Basic dead?
In last Feb, I was searching for a publisher for my book about Small Visual Basic for 6 years old. I think this particular reply from Philip Conrod, the president & publisher of Kidware Software LLC may show you where Small Basic is right now. This is only a part of his reply regarding SB and sVB, while the rest of his replay was about issues related to VB6 and VB .NET:
"Thank you for your email. I found your video on Small Visual Basic very educational and interesting. I plan to download your IDE and play around with it. Looks very cool! I love that you added a Designer with Windows Forms capabilities.
Unfortunately, Microsoft stopped promoting Small Basic and the sales for our Microsoft Small Basic books have gone to almost zero in the last couple of years. Without a big company like Microsoft continually promoting a kid friendly IDE (like Small Basic) there is not enough of a "paying" market to sustain and grow a paperback academic curriculum for a new IDE. With that said, I like what you have done so far and I hope to see Small Visual Basic grow."
And this is a part of my reply:
" Hi, Philip:
Thank you for this fast, honest and detailed reply.
Regarding Small Basic issues, Small Basic is loosing the battle against Scratch and Python in the last decade, due to some possible reasons:
1. Scratch and Python are growing and getting more popularity, while SB has no new features since 2013, even bugs are not fixed!
2. SB runs only on windows (which is still a big issue in sVB that I hope to fix in the future).
3. MS is steadily killing VB .NET since 2014, which gave Python the freedom to fill the void as the next easiest language on the planet. MS is actually executing the whole VB family (VBA, VBScript), which is giving python script the power to take over office applications!
4. SB itself is not perfect. I tried to teach it to my nephews and Arabic kids via a series of videos, but I felt that the easy part is not interesting, and the interesting part is not easy! This is when I suggested to the SB team to create Visual Small Basic (which I renamed Small Visual Basic later), but they didn't care, so, I played with a proof of concept shall it convince them, before realizing that I have to complete the project myself!"
Now, my question for Small Basic enthusiasts:
What do you think about that?
What should we do to attract kids to Basic again whatever they like to start with (Small Basic, Small Visual Basic, TwinBasic, VB .NET, ModVB)?
Or should we give up and move on to C# or Python?
Vijaye Raji
Admin
Philip is right and Microsoft might not be promoting Small Basic. However that doesn’t mean the language and the IDE are dead. I am still committed to keeping the import/export service running for Small Basic.
There’s nothing stopping people from using it to learn and enjoy programming. Hope this community can sustain itself without needing promotion from Microsoft
ZS