Better Basic

Sinclair User

Overall 5/5

John Gilbert 5/5

PUBLISHER: Digital Precision AUTHOR: Charles Dillon PRICE: £19.95 MEMORY: 128K SuperBasic is a fantastic high level language but even the most adapt Basic programmer may find the structure could be improved. A Renumber here, a tweak there... Better Basic does the tweaking automatically and is unique to the QL it will not only renumber your program but will also improve its structure and, if necessary, create new lines to deal with certain functions in a more stylish or efficient manner. The system operates in a similar way to a compiler. You create your Basic source program, load Better Basic, and feed it with the source which is then changed. Once the changes have been made the source is re-stored as a new file. The Better Basic operating system can change the structure of your program within pre-defined limits. For instance, it may split up a long line of statements into separate lines to make them easier to read or, more drastically, exchange a long line into a subroutine which does the same task but uses different code. If your program contains dramatic errors even Better Basic will not be able to cope. For instance you may have included too many For statements and not enough Nexts. Better Basic would run through the whole program, note the mistakes and give you a list of them at the end of the scan. SuperBasic is a complex language and if you intend to take full advantage of it, and avoid the bugs, you'll either need to spend hours pouring over your programs or buy Better Basic.