User:Eriksiers

If it's not listed, it's read-only... at best
Language	Proficiency
BASIC	My preferred language family
PowerBASIC	My overall favorite BASIC, and my overall-preferred IDE
FreeBASIC	What I use for Linux-everything-else
Visual Basic	What I use for Windows GUI... for now
QuickBASIC	My preferred DOS IDE
REALbasic	What I would use for Linux GUI, if I had to
Batch File	Somewhere between "decent" and "good"
UNIX Shell	Nowhere near as good as I need to be
C	I often write in BASIC, then translate
VBScript	I'm... okay...
PHP	Still learning
WeiDU	Still learning
Assembly	Read-only, for the most part
Pascal	Read-only, for the most part
Ruby	Read-only, for the most part
GML	Minimal knowledge
Visual Basic .NET	Minimal knowledge
Befunge	Shrug
Lisp	Just started learning

Not My Favorite Languages
Languages	Reasons
QB64	Bloat, unnecessary library requirements, weird C++ code generation. Definitely not ready for prime time.
Liberty Basic	I have my reasons; let's leave it at that.

Somewhat obviously, my name is Erik Siers. I'm one of the BASIC cheerleaders on RC. (I can do other languages, but I prefer BASIC by a lot.)

I've been working on a VB4/5/6-to-ANSI-C/C++ translator for a while. A long while -- first got the idea several years ago. No released code as yet, but it's progressing... slowly. Really slowly. One problem is that I'm writing it in VB6, so that it can translate itself (a self-hosting compiler). I also need to do it without using any API calls whatsoever. (Not that hard, but I've already had to kick myself a few times.)

(Another problem is that I have very little motivation to actually work on this project.)

I could use some help, actually. Anyone familiar with Visual Basic (not VB.Net), C, or (especially) C++ would be very much appreciated. If you wanna join the party, drop me a line.

Current events

I need a job. Anyone hiring BASIC code monkeys?

Operating Systems

I use a lot of OS's:

• Slackware Linux 13.37
  • Also Red Hat Enterprise Linux on my rackmount server -- but only until I get around to putting something else on it... maybe Slackware, maybe not
• Windows XP
  • Also WinXP x64 and Windows 7 (32-bit) on my x64 machine, for testing my programs
    • Win7 is way too slow on my system to be usable
      • I might try Win8, if I can get it for free, legally -- but not holding my breath
• MS-DOS 7.1 (from Windows 98SE)
• AROS, because I wanted a non-Windows, non-*nix, non-DOS OS on my main machine
• Mac OS 8 on my PowerBook
  • Also System 7, on my Performa
  • Also also the x86 version of Rhapsody DR2, just for kicks

I also toy around with numerous other operating systems under emulation (too many to list, but includes every 32-bit version of Windows, more than a few Linux distros, and several other *nix systems).

My code contributions

Unless otherwise specifically indicated, I disclaim any rights I might have to any code that I have posted to Rosetta Code, and assign any appropriate copyright to Michael Mol. (Everything posted to RC is automatically covered by the GNU FDL anyway.) This specifically applies to code that I have posted. Other people's code that I have made changes to belongs to them, not me, and I disclaim any rights I might have to those changes. (See Rosetta Code:Copyrights for RC's copyright policy.)

• My very first RC edit was adding BASIC to the task Convert an integer into words (now Number names).
• My 100th edit was the QuickBasic -> QuickBASIC redirect page.
• My 250th edit was the Windows Scripting Host -> Windows Script Host redirect page.
• My 500th edit was re-adding the implementation template to PowerBASIC Console Compiler. (Sigh.)

So far, I've only created a single task, Sorting algorithms/Pancake sort.

REALbasic

It should be noted that all REALbasic examples that I've written (which can be found by looking through my user contributions page) were written in REALbasic 5.5.5, which is several years old. (For comparison, this might be considered somewhat akin to writing in C90 instead of C99 (or C1X), or writing for the original VB.Net instead of VB2010 -- my examples will probably work under modern versions... but they might not. YMMV.)

Unsorted Code

Some stuff that I wanted to put up here, but don't have any idea how to categorize (or else they don't fit any one category very well, or whatever).

• Prime numbers
• to OS (I really need to update this one...)
• My email
• Alternate (broken) VB solution to the unbounded knapsack problem
• Alternate (improved?) CLISP exponentiation

Links

I put up my programming links on their own page. Have fun.

This is my Wikipedia user page.

This is my Sourceforge profile.

This is what passes for my home page... not that I actually do anything with it. (Never even finished writing the pages; just kind of stopped halfway through...)

Sorting

Some neat pages that graphically display various sorting algorithms.

• http://sortvis.org/
  • Software to generate these images available here.
• http://www.sorting-algorithms.com/
  • This one offers a few different ways to compare various algorithms.
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sort_algorithms
  • Also http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Animations_of_algorithms
  • And also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Nmnogueira#Graphics_and_Diagrams

My Sourceforge projects

• EEShell2 -- a replacement shell for 32-bit Windows
  • only usable through Win7; written in VB6, which is unsupported in Win8... or so I've heard
• IgrokYa -- a file type identifier (like file(1); originally part of Proxlat (below))
  • work stalled
• KanjiFinder -- a tool to help English-speaking users find Japanese kanji
  • program's done, but data files nowhere near complete
• Proxlat -- a general-purpose binary translator
  • abandoned as impossible
• QuickRun a simple program launcher (started as part of EEShell2)
• Visible -- a Visual Basic-to-C/C++ translator
  • work stalled, as usual
• Erik's tools -- a small handful of tiny utilities I wrote
  • I really need to update this one...

Quote of the Day

A bug can make your DOS session run off into the bushes and not come back.
 -- Jeff Duntemann