from ron77@lemmy.world to programming@programming.dev on 29 Oct 02:48
https://lemmy.world/post/38015219
Hi everyone 👋 I wanted to share a little project I’ve been working on: rbbasic, a BASIC programming language compiler I’m writing in C++.
The idea is simple — and a bit nostalgic: It’s a transcompiler that converts BASIC code into C, then compiles it using GCC into an executable.
🛠️ Current Status
Early alpha stage
Only basic features implemented (closer to a primitive GW-BASIC for now)
Still missing a lot of built-ins and syntax features
Focused on Windows right now — Linux support coming
The long-term dream is something like QB64-lite, maybe focused more on GW-BASIC style
🎯 Goals
See if I can actually build a working BASIC compiler 😅
Recreate the feel of GW-BASIC / QBasic on modern systems
Eventually MIT-licensed and published on GitHub
Mostly a personal hobby project right now — not aiming at mass adoption
Possibly demoing progress soon on my YouTube channel
❓ Why am I doing this?
Honestly… curiosity and love for BASIC. I code mostly in retro-style languages (FreeBASIC, QB45, Euphoria, etc.), so it feels natural to try building my own compiler even if better tools already exist today.
💬 Feedback welcome
I’d love your thoughts, advice, or suggestions. If anyone here has experience writing compilers, transpilers, or retro programming tools, I’d really appreciate hearing about your journey too.
Thanks for reading & happy coding! ✨
#programming
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Where is the code? Also I hate emojis.
The code is on my HDD, and a portable version with Mingw32 and SDL2 (almost one GB in size) on my USB stick
put it on codeberg and github… just to have a backup… doesn’t need to be public facing.
It is a wonderful project, I got a little rush of nostalgia just from the mention of GW-BASIC.
Make sure you research what the “right way” is to approach some of the difficult problems you will run into; you will learn more that way instead of needing to struggle with figuring out how to pick out where the end of the current loop is or whatever. It will be more enjoyable and manageable I think, and also you will level up your skill.
I do think you should leave the emojis out of the summary, people will think you had ChatGPT write the description lol.
Good luck! It sounds like an endeavor. It will probably not get some wide adoption, as you mention there are plenty of these tools already, but that is not the reason to do it.
Yeah, if I wanted a wide adoption, I’d probably name it something like “GW64” LOL :D
Open Source that shit. (If you want to get it to a more “done” state first, that’s fine.) The world can always use more FOSS.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the world does not, in fact, need a BASIC transpiler…
Okay, here it is on GitHub public repository. I registered on GitHub just for that; however, don’t get your hopes too high, it’s still in early alpha state - it’s not “full-featured gwbasic / qbasic compiler” yet, the README files and documentation are way, way too promising: github.com/ronen-blumberg/rbbasic