I think that PB represented the next stage of BASIC development for a long time,
and it really overcame many of the limitations of QBASIC, such as the memory
model, number of serial ports, and limited data types quite well.
But there is more competition from other languages and development tools now,
and it is less about price than it is about what you want or need to do, and how you want or need to do it.
Price becomes significant when you have reasonable alternatives, and then you become concerned about what you are paying the extra for.
I respect the fact that having the Cafe, that PowerBasic keeps hands off and does not police what gets posted. It represents a community viewpoint. However, I do find some of the things said, or the way they are said, rather extreme. I think the Cafe is also distracting - people spend too much time on it, and it is not productive time either.
I really think it has less to do with PB per se, than it has to do with the fact that the face of computing is evolving, and PB compilers are not on the bleading edge of what's going on. In fact, for many people, they need to play catch up in order to compete with other tools that have become available in the meantime.
But the problem with catch up is that it easily becomes too little, too late. You
have to get ahead of the game somewhere. And with FreeBasic and PureBasic already available on other platforms, and bringing the separate capabilities of the PB compilers together into single products, where is PowerBasic to excell?
But if you have PowerBasic or buy it, it does not disappoint. So it becomes a question of whether you will be happy with what you get, or can you get as much elsewhere for less. Sometimes a lot less.
