DOS "libraries" (was APPLEVISION Monitor)

From: Douglas H. Quebbeman <dquebbeman_at_acm.org>
Date: Tue May 7 14:41:32 2002

> >At least with QuickBasic you had the choice of incorporating BRUN45.EXE
> >and BRUN45.LIB into the .exe file. I remember that with Borland
> >compilers you had to include lots of files such as
> >CGA.BGI, HERC.BGI, EGAVGA.BGI together with any application that
> >you wrote.
>
> When I was running both TurboBasic and PowerBasic, neither
> one required you to issue 'includes' to access standard video modes.
> In over 12 years of running PowerBasic I've never had to link to an
> external file. PowerBasic also compiles into fairly small
> executable's, which are the only thing required unless there are
> datafiles that the programmer required to be present. I never liked
> the way QuickBasic required the distribution of it's external library
> with the executable, especially since you never quite knew which
> version of it a given program would require as things changed.

As Carlos stated above for QuickBASIC, and as I pointed out for
the professional BASIC compiler, it is NOT necessary to distribute
the external library with the executable.

You could create stand-alone executables that required no external
support. However, they were not small. Beginning with QuickBASIC 4.0,
the ENTIRE C LIBRARY was part of the runtime. And even if you never
used graphics statements, all the graphics code got pulled into the
executable (in the case of the stand-alone binaries) or was at least
present in toto in the separate runtime.

This had not been the case with QuickBASIC 3.0 (where I began with QB).

I imagine Turbo^H^H^H^H^HPowerBASIC uses the more sensible approach
of linking into the executables ONLY the stuff needed.

Microsoft could have done this, but they clearly did *NOT* want to
devote the resources needed to make it a truly professional product.

-dq
Received on Tue May 07 2002 - 14:41:32 BST

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