If I might be excused for posting here as an "outsider", because I'm not a MasmBasic user, here are my thoughts concerning this ... not sure whether to call it a utility, a facility, a programming environment or what. Anyhow:
First of all, even though I've never used it, I've seen enough of Jochen's postings on it to be very, very impressed by it simply as a programming project in and of itself. It's quite an edifice, with seemingly endless functionality. It's obviously a useful tool, since you can use it to construct actual Win32 programs that do all sorts of things. And on top of everything, it's just idiosyncratic enough to show some endearing quirks (could you ever imagine a Micro$oft IDE that looks like MasmBasic?). So that's all good.
But I'll probably never use it. First of all, despite it being able to construct programs in a very few lines of code, it still has a somewhat steep learning curve: what are all those bells and whistles, anyhow? All those mysterious "$"-named functions and macros and things that magically transform into other things. They're documented, apparently pretty completely, but I've looked through the docs and I still find it hard to actually find information about what, specifically, all the arguments to "Deb" do.
But more than anything, I'm a bit put off by its being kind of an automated toaster kind of ... programming environment. One where so much of what actually happens in the program goes on "behind the scenes" (which, after all, is what the original BASIC was all about, insulating the programmer from all those messy details). I can see how people would want to be spared all that stuff, but I guess I actually like grappling with those messy details.
It makes me think about where this kind of programming might be headed in the future. I can imagine a day not too far from now when a "program" might be constructed by the following (assuming that "programs" in the future aren't strings of DNA or nanoparticles injected directly into our cerebral cortex or some nightmare scenario like that):
Make a program with a window, oh, about yay by yay [indicates size by moving hands], plain Win512 executable.
I want it to take user input of a table of interstellar travel times and outputs a timetable.
Um, sort it by galaxy. And give me estimated fuel requirements.
Oh, and Siri, let me use it on my WristPad.
OK, make it so.
And bing! out pops a program. Complete with source code in color-tagged format.
I don't know. I'm a hobbyist programmer, not a production code monkey, so I do what gives me pleasure. This wouldn't do that.
Anyhow, curious to see any reactions to this. Like I said, I do admire JJ's creation. Just not my cuppa tea.
