Just wanted to let you know that beginner QuickBasic kids are also interested in Allegro!.. I don't know how to compile Allegro and would like to know if it's worth the effort or not... Will I be able to link DOS and/or Win Allegro and use it with QB?.. Thanks in advance...

Allegro is C/C++. Aren't there Basic languages for making games already? DarkBasic or BlitzBasic or somesuch?

Python rules. And pygame is ok, but not all to "pythonic". And it lacks some of Allegro's highlevel functionality (being SDL based and all). There once was an attempt to bind Allegro to Python, but I think they didn't get far. That might be interesting to get into...

I used to use Quickbasic (a loooong loooong time ago) and while it's easy to write simple programs, it ends up being much harder in the long run to do the things that a game requires. There are libraries for blitting+high-res screen modes for Quickbasic, but these really only take you so far.
If you are really interested in getting into making games, it's worth your while learning C or C++. If you like programming in general you're probably going to learn one of these eventually anyway.
I wish I'd known about Allegro, Mingw32 (Free C/++ Windows Compiler) and Dev-cpp years ago. I spent too much time looking for better libraries for QB and never found anything that could do it all.

I don't know about QB, but I know that VisualBasic can call DLL functions even if the DLL was created with C/C++.

Googling:
http://home.apu.edu/~jcox/Demos/vbanddll/vbanddll.htm

[edit] And another link:
http://www.nomad.ee/btrieve/articles/basicdll.html

[edit2] I think VB is essentially a follow-on to QB. ie QB is deprecated.

QB 4.5 was introduced in ~1988. VB was introduced ~1991.
Windows 3.0 was introduced ~1990
Windows 3.1 ~1992
Windows NT ~1993

I wasn't making any sort of judgement with your post... I was just confirming QB has been around for a long time. I had already said QB was deprecated.

"Qbasic extended 7.1" was "Basic Professional Development System 7.1", which was released ~1990. QB 4.5 was more of a personal compiler. PDS I think allowed better FAR access. Then there's Qbasic 1.1 that came with MSDos 6 ~1993. IIRC Qbasic 1.1 also showed up with Win95/98.

"which says something about the compiler"

Or it says something about the language.

Many people who are hobbiests do have aspirations beyond that niche, and even for those who don't, it's generally better to pick a language that has a future, doesn't teach bad style as a rule, and is socially acceptable.

Now, before I add another reply to this thread, keep in mind that I have no real stake in this argument.

It would seem to me that one could choose a BASIC variant and maintain structured professional code to produce professional products. I'm sure that's been the case for some of the better known BASICs, such as VB, VB.net, and PowerBasic. These are tools with perhaps greater limitations relative to languages such as C/C++/Java/C#/whatever, but satisfying the ends must count for something. I periodically browse the BlitzBasic site - and what I've noted is that the users are generating product, despite the (historical) baggage associated with BASIC.

With respect to coding professionally, where do languages such as Fortran and APL (J www.jsoftware.com and K www.kx.com)fit? At the other end, perhaps it would be best to adopt languages such as Eiffel and Smalltalk.

Of course if you wish to apply for a programming/software engineering job, listing BASIC experience will in all likelihood not help as much as C/C++.

Ultimately, I suspect that some variants are better than others and a talented individual would not be hindered.

ks: you forget one of the slickest BASICs I've ever seen: RealBASIC, but then, I haven't seen many BASICs Just VB and QB really.

I feel there are several cases to consider before we say if basic is a good idea or not -- it does depend on context:

(1) You're coding an engine from the ground up in basic -- you have some decent blitting functions in C, maybe some sound and input, but everything else is in Basic.

Why not? Because anything complex will become difficult to maintain, not to mention inefficient, in ways that are not fix-able because they are factors of the language; optimizations and clean code tend to be very hard to implement.

(2) You're extending a feature rich, reasonably optimized engine with basic as a scripting language.

This is a decent plan, but I would suggest checking out other 3D engines which are not basic-based as well, as BASIC has very few advantages over other languages, it's not a good reason to limit one's engine choices, and because a language is not usually a difficult thing to pick up and it's a good thing to be confident you can do.

(3) You're an artist who knows some Basic, you don't want to think about coding any more than you have to, and you just want to see your art do something nifty in a simple game of your own design.

In this case I would suggest basic.

As to the assertion that BASIC can be used to create maintainable, structured code, well, I feel that a heavily modified variant could be manageable, but no more so than an existing, widely used language, and furthermore that said existing widely used language would probably (A) not be much more difficult to learn than the heavily modified basic, (B) would probably be cleaner -- it would not have hackishly tried to force a bad language into a good design, and (C) would be more widely used, and therefore more likely to be useful in the future.

Get Delphi. It can link to any library that C/C++ can, and teaches much more structured programming.