I'm sure that most people who had a computer before 1995 have some idea of what QBasic is. If not, I'll just have to tell you. It was Microsoft's basic development system, that got included with every version of Windows up to Windows 98, and it received such coverage worldwide that it would be very difficult to find people who started using computers back then who didn't have QBasic as the first programming language they learned. QBasic had a cousin program, called QuickBASIC, which cost money, but could compile BASIC programs into full EXE files (for DOS) - since Microsoft stopped releasing QuickBASIC, a huge underground following for the language has developed, with many sites releasing QuickBASIC programs.

I used QuickBASIC for a long time, and I've always had a problem with the 16-bit EXE's that it produced, along with the fact that I could only produce DOS Code - quite annoying for a Linux user. So, when I found out about FreeBASIC, I was quite happy - it was a full-featured, 32-bit QuickBASIC compiler, with a full Linux version - I could finally compile my BASIC programs to run under Linux.

Features

GPL-licensed: This is a great advantage here - I can modify the compiler if I so choose, and stuff like that

Heaps of Libraries: In fact, any C Library can be used - so you can use the Win32 or GTK+ API's to create GUI's, or you could use SDL to make games, and all other stuff like that.

Available on Windows, DOS and Linux

The only real problem was the lack of an IDE for Linux (that I could find). I wasn't completely fazed by that, and went about writing one. I based my highlighter on the PureBASIC rules for KATE, and after an hour or two, I have a mostly-working FreeBASIC syntax highlighter.

So, overall, a very nice compiler. Can't wait for the 1.0 release.

Related Links
FreeBASIC.net - download the compiler, along with other stuff.

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