I thought I should make a small mention that my PortablE programming language has finally gone into Beta testing

What is PortablE?
It is a complete rewrite of the (once very popular) AmigaE programming language. Unlike traditional compilers it outputs code in C++ or other languages, with all your comments & formatting intact! It adds many modern new features, such as type checking, while trying to stay fairly backwards compatible.

As the name implies, the aim is to make it portable across many OSes, languages & CPUs, although currently it is limited to OS3 & OS4. This portability aim means that compatibility with the old AmigaE is not as high as it could be.

You can read the manual here.

What do you mean by Beta?
It has most bugs fixed, certainly all the ones that I could find. And it is close to being "feature complete", although it still has a few things missing (which I hope will be added sooner rather than later).

Where can I get it?
Please join the AmigaE mailing list, and ask me for it there:
http://www.freelists.org/list/positron

What are the highlights of PortablE?
Compared to AmigaE, too many to list here! Even the pretty large manual struggles to cover everything. But here are a few examples:

* A fully automatic module compiling system, so you don't need any Make files or IDEs!

* Can generate code for both OS3 & OS4. Support for more OSes to be added later.

* Completely type checked, which makes it much easier for beginners to learn, and also much better for large object orientated projects. And type checking was really needed for the various kinds of lists, immediate lists, typed lists, copies of lists, strings, e-strings, etc, because before it was very easy to make mistakes.

* The type checking is better than you get in Java or C++, so it should get in your way less. One reason people liked AmigaE was that it didn't have a type system to annoy you. I hope to strike a balance between those two extremes!

* Rather better & more accurate error reporting, although I'm sure this can be improved even more.

* Much better support for modern Object Orientation (OOP), if you like that sort of thing (I do!). And OOP is far easier to learn & use, because of the type checking.

* Fixes lots of silly limitations of AmigaE, e.g. Globals can be declared anywhere, as can objects. e.g. RAISE works with user procedures *and* methods. e.g. You can type NEW 'string' to create an e-string copy.

How do you pronounce PortablE ?!?
You do ask difficult questions! While you could say "portable E", I tend to just say "portable".

It's name was really a play on words, but one I didn't think too hard about how you should pronounce. We already had "AmigaE" & "CreativE", so "PortablE" was about as far as my dim imagination went!

Last edited by ChrisH on 03-Oct-2007 at 10:41 PM.
Last edited by ChrisH on 25-Jun-2007 at 11:14 AM.
Last edited by ChrisH on 25-Jun-2007 at 10:55 AM.

_________________

You can find some old discussions of PortablE here:
http://amigaworld.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?mode=viewtopic&topic_id=18639&forum=15
http://amigaworld.net/modules/news/article.php?storyid=3202&order=0#41488

edit: And for those who tried it before, and found it too slow, I should mention that PortablE is a lot faster now! Although I still hope for further speed-ups. And for those that previously complained, yes, it does also have a Ctrl-C check.

Last edited by ChrisH on 25-Jun-2007 at 12:06 PM.

_________________

@ChrisH

I prefer pronouncing it Portably!

_________________

@ChrisH
This looks great.
Would it be possible to provide the Manual in pdf format for offline printing?

Cheers,
Tim

@T_Power
That wasn't something I expected anyone to want! But since you asked so nicely , a little fiddling with the web page in Open Office 2 gave this:
PortablE.pdf
PortablE.odt (Open Office format)
PortablE.doc (MS Word format)

edit: Updated these to match the 15-Feb-2008 manual.

Last edited by ChrisH on 16-Feb-2008 at 09:08 AM.

_________________

@ChrisH

make the beta public! :D

_________________
AOS4 Betatester, Peg2, G4@1ghz, Radeon 9250 256mb, 1gb RAM.

http://www.asciiarena.com
http://www.uprough.net

@spotUP
There's a good reason for requiring the mailing list: If there are problems (and there will be, despite my best efforts) then I need to make it as easy as possible (1) for people to report the problem, (2) for other people to hear about such problems, and (3) for me to quickly provide fixes for such problems to everyone.

Plus, if people have questions about PortablE, other people will be able to read my answers, which will avoid me having to repeat myself

Not to mention that the AmigaE mailing list contains a lot of experts on the E language, and the best way to make E successful again is by everyone working together.

_________________

@ChrisH
Thanks for the PDF manual, Aweb doesn't print html to well, but AmiPDF prints great on OS4.0

Cheers,
Tim

Just to let you know that the second Beta of PortablE has been released on the AmigaE mailing list. The biggest changes are:


* Most bugs have been fixed, as PortablE is now able to correctly compile all 50,000 lines of itself to both C++ & AmigaE code. So I now use PortablE instead of AmigaE

* An AmigaOS 4 PPC native version is now supplied (3x faster than 68k version).

* Now supports all v45/v52 modules for Devices, Diskfont, Dos, Exec, Graphics, Intuition, Resources, Utility, and part of Other.

* Improved AmigaE compatibility mode, by totally disabling the type checking.

* The generated C++ code now compiles without any warnings.

* You can use assignments/etc within ELSE IF expressions. (By popular demand!)

* FastNew() & FastDispose() are implemented like AmigaE did, so they are very fast, and this means NEW, END, NewString() & DisposeString() are also very fast.

* You no-longer need any [square brackets] after END array, and in fact giving the size of an array is now disallowed (although an empty [] is fine).

* Added PrintFlush(), which when combined with Print() is better than the problematic mixing of PrintF() & WriteF().

* You no-longer need to use pointer arithmetic with StrCopy() or StrAdd(), thanks to the optional position parameter that has been added.

* The word "static" is no-longer used in a potentially confusing way. Thanks to Leif Salomonsson for pointing this out.

* Some warnings & errors now offer practical guidance, thus reducing the need to refer to the manual.

* Reduced memory usage, and many more small improvements!

* You must use a stack of 100KB, now that PortablE is compiled with GCC.

You can find the complete list of changes in the History chapter at the end of manual.

_________________

BTW, the previously mentioned PDF/etc versions of the manual have also been updated.

edit: And anyone joining the list to get PortablE, please post an email asking for it, and I will re-post the details of where to get it. I don't actually run the list myself, as it is a general AmigaE mailing list, not one specific to PortablE.

Last edited by ChrisH on 18-Feb-2008 at 05:35 PM.
Last edited by ChrisH on 18-Feb-2008 at 05:34 PM.

_________________

@ChrisH

I tried compiling AmIRSayPrefs.e (from http://aminet.net/comm/irc/amirsay.lha ) to see if it worked before attempting to fix a bug in it, but got the following error:

3.RAM:PortablE_080215/PortablE> PortablE-OS4 AmIRSayPrefs.e
Loading module "AmIRSayPrefs".
ERROR: " BUG"; sequence.insert(); failed to read some items for shifting.
Please report this bug to the program author!

Last edited by AlexC on 19-Feb-2008 at 06:19 AM.

_________________
AlexC's free OS4 software collection

AmigaOne XE/X1000/X5000/UAE-PPC OS4 laptop/X-10 Home Automation