OK, I have had 4 ideas that have been floating around my brain, that I don't want to try and work with right now because of all the other projects I am working on, but I have decided to put them out there for you guys to play around with;

Idea 1: "Runner File"
what if we had one program that used Celtic 2/3 to extract the program that was required for running, then delete it when it was done, then extracting the next one for execution. this would really help if you had a lot of programs to execute because you would only have the one that you where using at the time on the RAM. and it also cuts down on the amount of programs on your program menu.

Idea 2: "Game Saving"
what if we used Celtic 2/3 to save info directly to the game, then we wouldn't have to worry about the necessary vars being deleted between uses.

Idea 3: "SMC (of a sorts)"
what if we had a program that will use Celtic 2/3 to modify itself during use, it would be useful for turning off options so that the program would function faster because the function would no longer be in the code. The only problem is that it would lead to large code size

Idea 4: "Random AI Generator"
A AI was built off of a template randomly. or a AI program could be filled in, thus the AI will be completely different each use.

So what do you guys think? are they good ideas or bad ones?

I think you like celtic way too much.

Ok, so about the ideas themselves:
First one is a pretty good idea, which is exactly why people whose programs need that already do it that way.

Second one is interesting, and for some things it would probably work reasonably well. I would be suprised if no one has done this already, but if they haven't, good for you for coming up with that.

The third idea, however, seems to be outside the range of the calcs. The third idea just doesn't seem like it would actually make programs faster or more efficient to me, in practice. If someone wants to try it (maybe modify an existing program to compare with) I would be interested in seeing the results, however.

I don't see what is so novel about the fourth idea, or why you would need to use celtic. Just write an AI the actions of which are based on variables that you randomize at the beginning of execution!

yeah I did think that the last one was kind of useless, and the third one was just a novelty item, but the second one has been on my mind for a while but I haven't done anything about it. Areyou interested in doing something about some of them?

The second one is already extensively done in ASM programs; that's how the programs remember your username, saved game(s), high score table, etc.

yeah I know, but nobody has ever done it in basic

That's because it can't be done in pure BASIC. You can't write to programs in BASIC.

I know, but with Celtic you can, so that opens up a whole new window of opportunities for basic programmers

With Celtic it's not pure BASIC
But I'd agree that to-the-program data saving would be kind of neat to have in a hybrid program.

yeah I know, that's what I was getting at with this whole thing... and like jbr said, I like celtic way too much

The first one sounds like NoShell.... =D

About the second one:
Object-oriented-programming would be very cool to implement... plus, variables that are unique and travel with a program would be soooo handy ... *sigh*

About the fourth one: It's been discussed before, but it could be used as the basis of an AI... basically, take in an input, and given a known output, brute force your way into finding a reliable pattern. The problem is that Celtic (and calculators in general) tend to be too slow for this kind of thing.

Hmm, Eeems, it sounds to me that you should begin learning non-calc languages if you haven't already. TiBasic is too slow and too limited for many more complex tasks that you seem to be interested in. Try something easy, like Python, or Java for instance =D

oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that the first one was using groups for storing the programs
@rthprog: I tried to learn python but it kind of confuses me... what I like about tiBASIC is that the size problem forces you to try and find the most efficient way of doing things. its easier to work with a calculator for me, because my parents try to limit my time on the computer. but I do have a computers class at school, which I'm going to try and learn HTML an PHP in before anything else.

You make a good point about BASIC's real charm: the smallness of its world.

For some reason, I, at least (although I think other people probably feel this way about some things too), enjoy working with systems that I can have a hope of fully understanding. The calcs are a great example, because they are both so generally well understood already and because they have such limited scope compared to something like, say, the entire field of computers or electronics. I have the feeling that it is actually possible to learn everything there is to learn about them, or at least aspects of them like BASIC programming.

Another example for me is the game OpenTTD. I don't know if anyone else here has ever played it, but it's a sort of strategic simulation game in the spirit of Transportation Tycoon. The whole community surrounding it involves a lot of different things, from pixel art to ingame signal logic to assembly programming, but all together it creates one system that is complicated enough that most people won't understand it, but also simple enough that with a little investment of time, the average relatively smart person can become an expert.

I don't really play a lot of games, but I get the feeling that a lot of people that get really into one game do it for the feeling of mastering one entire system.

Does anyone connect with what I'm saying? Does it make any sense? It's a little hard to express exactly what I mean...

Yea, it makes sense. Generally with computer programming, you can spend a year or three and get very familiar with how an OS works down to the C programming level, so when you write something yourself you'll know exactly what you're dealing with. You can do it without that knowledge, of course, but debugging (for example) will be less intuitive for many applications, etc. Needless to say this is more true with Linux than with Windows, as much of Windows' underpinnings will always remain shrouded in mystery.

Or you can be a man and write your own kernel

@Eeems: Sorry, but if Python confuses you, I would recommend you NOT get into the computer science field. Python is one of (if not the) the easiest full featured languages there is.

Try starting a little smaller. I learned the basics with FreeBASIC. It's not the most powerful language in the world, but it really helps bridge the gap between calculator programming and computer programming. It's pretty much a QuickBASIC clone, but a little more usable.
http://www.freebasic.net/

I don't enjoy programming in TiBasic because I understand it... I love it because it lets me hone my programming skills, through optimizations and such. Normally, I don't care about how much space I'm eating up; on the calc I have to, making it more challenging.

@Eeems
Anyways, programming for a computer will also greatly help you program in TiBasic. I highly recommend Python even if it initially confused you; there are numerous guides and sample programs that will explain it to you.... plus, if you have any questions you can always ask...

Hmm, my parents did the same thing to me... you should be able to bring IDLE to school, or at least write into pure text files and compile them at home, but I wouldn't. If programming genuinely interests you, as it certainly appears, I would ask your parents to see if you could spend more time playing around with code...

of course you could have fun with batch files if you only have access to school computers... haha =D

I wrote a scheduler, is that good enough?

the only reason python confused me is because I didn't have that good of a tutorial. But I do know how to do the really basic stuff. If I had a really in depth description of how to use each command it would help, because I like to know what the commands do and then I play around with them. Maybe I'll try and take it up again, but first I'm going to try and learn HTML, PHP and ASM. and I have so many projects that I have to complete that I have no time to take up anything else.

Eh, its at least closer than most things, but a little on the weak side

EDIT: Eeems, the official tutorial is pretty darn good - better than most tutorials: http://docs.python.org/3.0/tutorial/

thanks I'll check it out sometime