the apocalypse!

[Gets]

Doesn't really matter. We all have a copy of QB64. We can all fork it. We all saw the "official" version go down and most everyone still plugged along like usual. If the people behind QB64.com produce something useful, people will use it. No one will get in their way if they maintain control of their work. Don't trust what anyone is doing? Take as much of it into your own hands as you can. If you're waiting on an update from QB64.com, that's perfectly fine. Hopefully it's worth it. If not, hey, every existing copy of the program will probably still be around.

[SMcNeill]

Why reset the version number...

You'll find the answer to that in the stickied topic Who and What is The Phoenix Edition (qb64phoenix.com), which is visibly prominent under announcements and has been there for quite some time.

...and dress things up so the compiler looks nothing like the old one?

Exactly how has the compiler changed any?  The IDE is the same.  The color scheme is the same.  We haven't altered the QB64.exe filename in any way, so it still looks the same on your directory listings.  Can you kindly show us an indication to how you think the compiler no longer looks anything like the old one?  Side by side image comparisons, please.  I'm curious about exactly what there is that's changed to the point that it would make someone say the compiler looks nothing like before.

Why rush non-needed updates during a transition of power?

What's a non-needed update?  How long should one wait?  Do you think it was wrong to fix QB64 so that it will run properly and not freeze up when trying to download pages from the old -- now non-existent -- wiki site?  That's the very first update we pushed out, to keep QB64 from bricking up if the user clicked "Update Page" for any of the wiki pages.  In your opinion, how long should users have to deal with an unstable IDE which might freeze and require a manual termination from the system?  If you're waiting on the other guys to fix the problem, they still haven't gotten around to it yet, and we're now going on what?  Three months or so after QB64.net went down?

As for a transition of power, let me ask:  When did that occur?  At which point did RC Cola say that the old team was stepping down, never to return?  Last I heard, they said if there was enough interest in maintaining the github, they'd be back.  Never once did RC hand power over to anyone, and -- as far as I know -- he's still the only one with the credentials to access the QB64.net sites, youtube, twitter, and all.  It doesn't seem to me that power was ever transferred to anyone.  We simply exercised the rights that any user has with an open source project -- we branched off from the main source once it stopped active development, and we started maintaining our own version.  Power has never been transferred anywhere from the old QB64 Team.

I won't say how I came to know this, but at least two of the old Team are behind QB64.com. Don't press me for how I know this, however.

Good for them!  Maybe they'll be able to get an update out soon and start developing something.  I'll be looking forward to it, just like I'm certain everyone else out there is! 

For what it's worth however, we have four members of the old team here developing things.  I've always been a part of the team, and until RC kicked me, like everyone else, I was one of the members of the "QB64 Team", as was Cobalt, and Spriggsy, whereas DSMan was one of the original contributors to the project with me, while Galleon was still in charge of it all.  

And, I don't think it's any sort of secret that Sprezzo has joined the Qb64.com team, though if you look at the repo history, t\you'll see that his contributions to the project is half a step above nil...

 

Also conspicuously absent from the front page of Phoenix is InForm, along with any of the web representations of QB64 (BAM, QBJS, etc). I belive those guys are looking to enshrine and somewhat maintain InForm at the website while prepresenting QB64 in its fullest form.

InForm was Fellipee's work.  Fellippee walked away from the project.  None of us are regular users of InForm, nor developers for InForm.  Why would we host it in particular when we'd be unable to answer questions or support it?  There's no reason for us to enshrine InForm, as it has its own dedicated github where it sits for prosperity.  We'll direct people to it, who ask any questions about any sort of issue that pertain to it, but none of us are able to offer much more advice about it than, "We know it exists.  Lots of folks have used it.  We personally haven't, but it might be what you're looking for, if you can figure out how it works."

As for web representations of QB64, we're not related to those.  If someone wants to share links to those projects via our list of external links, they're more than welcome to do so -- they're just not part of our personal Project.  If you notice, QBJS doesn't link to anywhere -- https://qbjs.org.  As for "BAM", I don't even have a clue what it is, or where it exists, but I can assure you, it's not part of our project either.  Surely it's not BAM | About, is it?  

It feels like a cult around here at phoenix, frankly.

How so, exactly?  Cults tend to practice seclusion, so that they can keep control over their members.  We're open for all, with only one troll and several spambots banned from our forums here.  We don't tell our members not to go to other sites, we don't tell them to ignore other versions of QB64, nor do we tell them what to think in regards to features or usefulness of other versions of BASIC.  In fact, there's a whole topic dedicated to discussing and comparing various versions of basic here: BASIC's Comparison Matrix: ideas for content? (qb64phoenix.com)

Cults tend to ask for money, or control over a member's property, income, ect.  Qb64.org was the one, under RC Cola, which had a clause that read "Anything you share via any QB64 affiliated medium, is the property of the QB64 Team."  Our philosophy is rather simple:  "We claim to no ownership of anyone's work, except for our own."  Feel free to post and share your code when you want to.  Feel free to delete it and remove it whenever you want to as well.  We don't claim rights to anything that someone else shares on our forums, and we don't have a patreon, nor do we ask for any donations for anything which we do.

Members here are free to come and go as they wish, we're non-exclusive, and we don't try and milk anyone for any profits or intellectual property rights.  We're simply a group of hobbyists who branched off from the old QB64.org site, and we're embracing our hobby with likeminded individuals.  How exactly is that "cult like"?  

I'd love to hear how you feel our community could improve and become any more welcoming than what it already is.  Feel free to point out our "cultlike" behaviors.  I'm certain everyone here would love to improve if we're doing something exclusive or wrong.

Just don't expect us to stop the virgin hamster sacrifices during the full moon.  Those are essential to keep the Dark Powers on so that the server can keep running and we can all keep the end of the world at bay, for the sake of humanity itself!!

[Pete]

You can check-out any time you like, but be advised... we are the only QB64 site with a 5-pentagram rating!

Pete

[JRace]

Wow, Steve, good reply!

So Phoenix is nefarious?  I knew I liked it here for some reason; just couldn't put my finger on why.

Phoenix is clearly not some usurpation of power or "official" status; it is an actively growing fork - one of MANY actively growing forks, hopefully - arising out of the ashes of "The Incident".  These forks are an indicator of the potential for resilience of Open Source software.

No one knows if any of the existing forks of QB64 will eventually dominate the scene so much that it becomes the defacto standard, but I'd be VERY wary of anyone calling themselves the "official" QB64 until a whole lot more dust has settled.  The "official" QB64 is either dead or severely wounded; time will tell.  In the meantime, QB64PE is a perfectly solid QB64, being actively developed by a group of skilled, enthusiastic volunteers.

[triggered]

I actually remember before SMcNeill deleted any trace of Sprezzo from this website. I think it was about "stealing" the logo, which is actually still visible on the main webpage. It might also have been about attempting to wipe out the repo history to make it appear is if SMcNeill created QB64 itself. I also remember a somewhat humorous flare-up regarding links, or something. Or lists, was it. Seeing how qb64.com is actually a repo, we can see it is changing by the minute, someone is busy over there...

[SMcNeill]

I actually remember before SMcNeill deleted any trace of Sprezzo from this website. I think it was about "stealing" the logo, which is actually still visible on the main webpage.

Nobody stole any logo.  LOL!  The old logo was downloaded from an open website that posted backgrounds in good faith.  Sprezzo found the same logo on a different site, with different use permissions, so it was discarded and replaced by a version our users produced instead.

It might also have been about attempting to wipe out the repo history to make it appear is if SMcNeill created QB64 itself. I also remember a somewhat humorous flare-up regarding links, or something. Or lists, was it. Seeing how qb64.com is actually a repo, we can see it is changing by the minute, someone is busy over there...

The repo history was never wiped out.  When we cloned the repo, I didn't bother to branch off and copy the old repo -- there's 500+ MB of history there, which is truly unnecessary to keep, in my opinion.  A simple link saying, "Branched from here," should have been good enough for anyone who was interested in the old historical changes with QB64, without everyone needing to dedicate so much diskspace and bandwidth to downloading and working on the repository.  Folks didn't like this decision, so we ended up merging histories in the end after all, but I honestly still feel as if it was just a wasted and unnecessary effort which only increases disk space and places a burden on any user who downloads the repo.  If you're a college student who gets your version of the repo while downloading from your local coffee shop's internet, or from the local library's internet, then download speeds and limits can be a real concern.  

In my opinion, anyone who was curious about QB64 history's of changes could have just as easily went to github and viewed the history at any of the other 100 branches out there, without us needing to host it personally, but it is what it is now.  Folks wanted that history attached for some reason, and so it was merged and is part of what we have now -- for right or wrong.

Seeing how qb64.com is actually a repo, we can see it is changing by the minute, someone is busy over there...

I'm glad they're busy over there!  Honestly!  After all, we don't have a repo of our own, and you can't see how often we're pushing changes and updates into the language, and we're not busy working on anything at all around here.  From my count, we've only had 28 updates in the repo so far this month.  We've barely done anything at all!

Got to admit though, I do it find it funny that you praise the guys over at QB64.com so highly for their work and their repo.  You do realize that they're simply taking things thatwe've done and adding it into their repo as their own, right??  Take, for example, the reference for _BIN$ which was written and added into our wiki by RhoSigma...

_BIN$ · QB64Official/qb64 Wiki (github.com)

I guess it's not so hard for them to push out updates over there, when they're just coming along and making copies of all the things which we've been doing.  It's a shame they couldn't bother to keep the links to the original site in the stuff they "used", but that's okay.   I'm certain you'll let them know how important it is to preserve history and not claim work as their own after all, right??

Personally, I think it's just nice to see that they find our work so useful that they're willing to copy it, edit it, and use it for their own version as well! 

Of course, not counting the wiki information that they copied, I am curious about how "busy" they've all been.  Commits · QB64Official/qb64 (github.com)  From the last update on their github, it appears as if it's been over a month since anyone updated or pushed any real changes into the repo there.  Hardly seems, "by the minute", unless I'm missing something that is. 

[dcromley]

> Triggered: It feels like a cult around here at phoenix, frankly.
> Pete: We are the only QB64 site with a 5-pentagram rating!

Thanks Pete, that makes the whole thread worth reading.

> SMcNeill: [ much ]
> JRace: Wow, Steve, good reply!
> SMcNeill: [ more ]

Thanks to Steve and the others who are the core of this outfit. I am one of many who just enjoy QB64 and take it for granted ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona...%20granted )

[Pete]

> Triggered: It feels like a cult around here at phoenix, frankly.
> Pete: We are the only QB64 site with a 5-pentagram rating!

Thanks Pete, that makes the whole thread worth reading.

> SMcNeill: [ much ]
> JRace: Wow, Steve, good reply!
> SMcNeill: [ more ]

Thanks to Steve and the others who are the core of this outfit.  I am one of many who just enjoy QB64 and take it for granted ( https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictiona...%20granted )

[Pwillard]

I'm still trying to figure out the 'cult' reference.

[bplus]

I'm still trying to figure out the 'cult' reference.

We exalt QB64 above all others and highly esteem fellow members of forum