This is amazing! Having no knowledge of Basic, a.) what makes the rewrite "impossible"? b.) how do coding agents perform on the codebase? It might make for a neat benchmark similar to ARC
I gather the version of Basic is not Object-Oriented.
So the program most likely is flat: a bunch of global variables (and possibly memory addresses), and instructions ordered by line number, rather than functions or methods.
Apparently PowerBasic was the successor to Borland TurboBasic and complied to a native executable. So this wasn't an interpreted 'line number' Basic like our kiddie computers. It also probably had the Borland Windows GUI stuff.
(However it wouldn't surprise me if older 'line number' programs still mostly worked. iirc VB6 also supported this.)
No line numbers but you can use numbers as goto labels. It uses Dynamic Dialog Tools which is a Win32 wrapper which most of my "job" is gutting out those calls, implementing Single Responsibility in functions and plugging in Electron UI. And trying not to break EVERYTHING...
Still using PB compiler. Tried to reach out to the company that bought the right to it and killed it because I wanted to extract the parser from it and make it target LLVM to be cross platform, but after a year of trying to contact them I gave up. I will have to build my own compiler at some point with Claude Code which won't be too difficult as WSR only uses a subset of PowerBasic so. When I first tried to build a compiler two years ago I didn't understand all the gotchas in PowerBasic as I do now. But right now I'm just focused on testing the game, fixing bugs, and getting it to Early Access so many I can get up to minimum wage in sales with the time I have invested in the project!
PowerBasic does have functions. Go there is thousands of goto and gosub which would need to be unraveled which there isn't really a 1:1 for gosub at least in say C++. Or EXIT IF... The bane of my existence...
a) At the time it was impossible for me. I think I could actually do it now. But now that I can read the BASIC... what would be the point? If I wanted it cross platform, I will build a virtual machine.
b) Claude Code has performed exceptionally well. I haven't tried the most recent Codex update. But I don't see the point in spending thousands of dollars on tokens to rewrite it when it works perfectly fine. It would be much cheaper to have Claude Agent build the virtual machine. That's just my opinion. If it ain't broke don't fix it I guess. I do want to bring it to mobile though, whether that's a phone app or responsive website.
Can the original code simulate the stock market as it operates today? The main reason I would want to convert the engine to a modern language is to make it easy enough to understand that I could add features.
I think it will definitely need refactored in order to do an overhaul like that.
But the best way I can answer your question. WSR does not claim to simulate real markets. It probably leans too much into fundamentals for our time, at least for the blue chip stocks in the game. What is actually is is a M&A and tax evasion simulator on top of a financial market sandbox to create tax implications to be avoided.
The issue is that you're doing lot, but not saving the planet.
What do you think is happening with the efficiency gains? You're making rich people richer and helping AI to become an integral (i.e. positive ROI from business perspective) part of our lives. And that's perfectly fine if it aligns with your philosophy. It's not for quite a few others, and you not owning up to it leads to all kinds of negativity in the comments.
>What do you think is happening with the efficiency gains?
may it happen that the efficiency gains decrease demand and thus postpone investment into and development of new and better energy sources? If one couldn't get by just by bringing 20 trucks with gas turbines, may be he would have invested in fusion development :)
> may it happen that the efficiency gains decrease demand
What mechanism would make this happen?
Demand could decrease if AI became worse, but efficiency doesn't make AI worse - it actually makes possible at all to run bigger, better models (see the other comment with a link to Jevon's paradox), which increase, not decrease demand (more powerful models may have new capabilities that people want to use)
Alternatively, AI demand could decrease through political pressure (either anti-AI sentiment takes a foothold on the public, and/or government regulation strangle demand on the sector like it did for eg. on tobacco industry). But another way to reap the benefits of more efficient AI datacenters is to make it a talking point on how AI environmental impacts can be mitigated, which could curb anti-AI sentiment.
Either way, those possibilities don't decrease demand for AI - they are either neutral, or increase demand instead.
I thought toastmasters was great. But all the different clubs had different personalities. So, you have to find the right club. I was in it in the early 1990s and do not know how it’s evolved. What I liked about it was it had a ten speech structure and you could move on w life afterwards. Speaking in a contest beyond the club level could have you in front of 60 or more people. But something magical happens and your comfort level increases.
I think there are other non toastmasters opportunities in volunteering but it’s nice to get the framework before you are thrust in front of large groups.
But back to resources, I e seen some serious professional negotiation programs at my public library that really impressed me.
Finally… and I’m spitballing here, I guess you could beat yourself up with speed dating events. lol.
I will quickly forget the details about any given code base within a few months anyway. Having used AI to build a project at least leaves me with very concise and actionable documentation and, as the prompter, I will have a deep understanding of the high-level vision, requirements and functionality.
Same here. While I'm excited to build quickly, I'm also trying to fathom the implications of it. If the marginal value of app development drops to zero, then what? I will neither take pride in the craftmanship of building using my own skills, nor benefit monetarily.
