Keeping focus

I used to be a contendah. I did some amazing things with VB6 back in the day. I was always aware of it's flaws, but nothing allowed me to be more productive in writing business software. 12 years later and I still can't find anything to equal it. I had hopes back when I bought Delphi 5, but I just can't stomach Pascal. It makes me think it's the bastard love child of Fortran and Cobol. I've written exactly one program in each of those languages. I had an old girlfriend that used to say "she'd do anything once; twice if she liked it." I didn't like P, F or C. The other, just C, I did like; but it's not a complete language by itself. You have to use libraries to complete it and I've never liked any of those libraries. C++ is just worse.

I'm using PowerBASIC because of the resulting executable... not because I like the language. I bought EZGUI 5 recently to complement it, but it will not add anything that I need to the core language so it will have to wait for another project. I will not let anything distract me from getting this first project done. I even got an email from someone wanting to host my new domain (the competition for customers must be intense.) I told him to remind me in about four months which is about when I'll be ready for initial testing.

I was worried about how I'd do a database, but SQLitening seems up to the task. I won't have to write any host software (clarification in a moment) because I can code directly to it's service on a host. It's been stress tested using 500 bots without a hiccup, so it should be able to handle the load I intend to throw at it (and I have some control in limiting users per host if need be.) While I will not need to write a host. I will need to write an admin program that will interact with the service just like the clients will. That opens up the question of access security. I need to look into that.

I've downloaded just about every IDE on the net (seems like I'm not the only VB guy wanting what he once had.) None of them are more than a pretty face. One, Firefly, looks interesting but I can't find the PowerBASIC version it's supposed to have. I have the FreeBASIC version and it seems the best I've come across. I can't use FreeBASIC. It uses GCC to compile and the result is horrible compared to what I can produce with PB. The other PB, PureBasic, has some of the same flaws as FreeBASIC so it's out (both can do Linux, so may get another look... after my main focus: get a money making product in production within the year.)

I've found a useful, but not essential, tool for working with SQLite files. All I really need to do now is code (which is being interrupted for the next few days.) Then back to it.

Right now I'm just using one local SQL file. But my next job will be to simulate the host. When I actually do have a host running it will only require small changes to my code. The big changes will start with this simulation so I'm going to start that now (first thing in a few days when my interruption is over.)