Builder Review

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relatively small ifie sizes and the added capability and security.

The Builder product includes an editor, compiler and special linker, Mlink, in an integrated turbo-type environment with a hot-key compile and link step. Of course you don’t have to use the provided editor environment, you can use your own editor (and/or linker) and compile and link separately. It creates a .COM file (or .EXE, if necessary) which you are free to distribute, royalty free.

No gain without some pain.

It is here that I must bring up one of the areas of criticism I have of the package. The documentation (in the review version I received) has no discussion of editor commands and general operation other than a listing of key assignments in an appendix. I suppose Tom Cambell, the author, figures that the editor menus and on-line help is sufficient. It is, it just takes a tad longer to “intuit” the steps.

Another peeve to mention:

compiler error messages are slightly less cryptic than Russian street signs - e.g., “9: syntax error”. Meaning something is wrong at line 9, presumably. Other messages didn’t give me that much and, in a couple of cases, merely hung my machine. (I really, really hate that!) Also, where you place REM statements makes a difference! Why?? Who knows?

Other commands, such as EXiT and CANCELED seem to suffer with the same placement problem. Thus, certain commands and syntax don’t always give what you might expect and use seems

clumsy at times. Use of the Escape key does not always produce the stated result, e.g., exiting a menu without executing the first ITEM in an items list. Hopefully, familiarity with the language and its quirks would eventually overcome these minor frustrations.

Not much is missing!

An expanded tutorial section using some of the more advanced features would probably go a long way toward making the documentation complete. (The 3 or 4 pages of trivial examples in the user manual just don’t get it.) Though the list of commands is a rich one, there are a couple of useful commands that seem to be missing, such as, a text centering function, cursor-off/on control and a BOX command that allows other extended characters besides single and double lines. On the positive side, however, the editor is quite capabre with drop-down menus and a decent help system. Also some example .BLD files are provided to give a good feel for what the language is capable of doing, at least in the area of screen controL

Documentation aside, I think most experienced programmers will find the product fairly easy to use. The syntax has a Basic

language feel to it and Dbase programmers can simply “SAY

.“ instead of “@ SAY .. With some experimentation I was able to hammer out some of the less obvious requirements of the language, e.g., you must use the double quote character around text to be displayed.. There is no option for the single quote character, since it is use for comments. Also, don’t RUN the DOS MODE command prior to doing a menu, unless you issue a MENU STYLE command first, else you may see an amazing display of mixed colors. . . you know, those kinds of things.

To sum up, I have to say that this is definitely a product I will use and one I have been waiting for. It could easily become a regular part of your development process. Write the application, write a user “shell.com” and then an installation procedure with sophisticated error handling and hardware checking. Hyperkinetix should beef this product up, improve the documentation, correct some of those little irritating points mentioned above and put more marketing punch behind this one. It’s a winner!

The Newsletter of the Dbase Language Professional Developers Group, September 1990

Page 9