In light of my upcoming program Basil, I have been asking around for some good idioms. I already have fifteen good ones. But since Cemetech is the home of the Basic Elite, I might as well ask here too.

Would anyone like to post some good idioms NOT found in the L33T Guide to TI-BASIC and ones that aren't REALLY commonly known (e.g. Output(1,1,")?

I would highly appreciate your idioms and/or comments on the Basil project in general.

Basil, I hope, if adopted by the community (every time another program uses it, more memory is saved for users), could become a tool that helps everyone in the community, such as I spoke of just before I left Cemetech last time.

I hope that all comments are constructive- I have pretty much come back to Cemetech and I don't want to feel that I am being oppressed.

sounds like an interesting project, I hope you are not going over your head.

What do you mean?

The programming is not hard, as I will be using Basic Builder. And it's more of an idea. The hardest thing yet is making the documentation

It's definitly going to be interesting.

Using BASIC Builder would make it an ap, and that would the require OpenLib and ExecLib to use, and then you lose 83+(SE).
I think that lines I use a lot are better done in my own lib (don't take that the wrong way).

I don't know if I'd call them idioms, which is defined as Instead, I think you should called them routines.

Looks like an interesting project, but it's kinda along the same lines as asm libraries.

Thanks for the comments. Don't worry, this is a *constructive* thread.

With fear of sounding n00bly, please explain what you mean by losing the TI-83+/SE.... they have APPs too?

I've only been calling them idioms because the L33T guide does and it seems rather definitive. I will probably just call them functions in the endgame, however.

It won't be like ASM libraries in the sense that ASM libraries add functionality. Basil is designed simply to save memory.

because the 83+/SE can't access libraries built into an app, you need keyhooks for that then. (maybe I should have stated that before). Also, keyhooks require ASM programming.

I think you misunderstand...... but thanks for the facts....

The library's contents will be different programs, accessible via the prgm button. The APP is used as a developer's/user's guide in the sense that it tells you which program does what and a little bit more about Basil.

ah, ok, that makes more sense then, thanks for the clarification

Ok, the concept is fine, but don't you think that a 16K app will use a bit more money than it will save on a calculator. For it to be worth it to the user, you'd need every single program on there calculator to ue these. Otherwise I think it would take more space.

Edit: Oh, it's not an app. Still, you need all of these programs unarchived in order to get the functionality. I think that this will take more space than it's worth.

It definitely sounds like an interesting idea. I think the most challenging part of it will be making routines general enough to be used in a variety of different types of programs but useful enough that they can actually help reduce program size.

The APP is for use for developers/or users who want to know more about the contents. Also, in the Readme, a developer will be encouraged to make a list of the Functions that he uses, so that a user only uses the ones his programs use.

ok, so eliminate sections of code that you don't need, that is good

Besides, isn't an APP smaller than a program? If the program is smaller than the APP then obviously I won't use it. But I highly doubt that will be the case.

True, but making the library an APP makes it harder to call the functions. Also, if your program is that size, I hope to see some great optimizations because it takes a while to search through code

Even if an App is only 100 bytes long, I think it will still take up at least 16k of memory, which is one App page. Honestly, I don't think this will be a good idea since it IS in BASIC and won't add any functionality to programs like the Asm libs, so it won't be as attractive to programmers.

How exactly are those functions used? I googled them but couldn't find anything useful.

go to the TI-Knowledge base, there is info there

something1990: you are correct. An app can only take multiples of 16k up.

The code will be optimized as much as possible- and I will try the APP and whichever is smaller will be used as the released one.

Unless the program is less than 16kb, the app will be bigger. I don't see you making 16kb worth of code, so the program would probably be the better way to go. But, there is the issue with it being unarchived as a program - which an App can avoid.