RE: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] BASIC, yes! was Re: TypeMatic Rate

One thing to consider when using BASIC, or any other language for that
matter - Choose a compiler rather than an interpreter.

What's the difference? A compiler reads the human readable code one time,
converts it into code that the computer understands and produces an
executable program. An interpreter is the program (not the CNC program
written in BASIC). It runs while you're running the machine and reads each
line, one line at a time and figures out (interprets) what it's supposed to
do. Which means that, on the same machine, an interpreter will execute your
program much slower than the same program which is compiled once and
executed.

While BASIC seems to have the greatest number of interpreters, other
languages such as UCSD pascal are also interpreters of sorts.

-- Carol & Jerry Jankura
Strongsville, Ohio
So many toys, so little time....

P.S. Ballendo - I'm aware of Stepster being written in Basic. What are the
other three programs?

|-----Original Message-----
|From: ballendo [mailto:ballendo@...]
|Sent: Friday, February 22, 2002 4:00 AM
|To: CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.com
|Subject: [CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO] BASIC, yes! was Re: TypeMatic Rate
|
|
|Barry,
|
|BASIC's not so bad. (you don't need line numbers anymore)
|
|I know of at least FOUR popular cnc controllers written using BASIC.
|Successfully controlling several hundreds of machines!