I have been learning new programming languages for a very, very long time. I started with programming using the most basic machine language, 3 digit numbers that had to be entered into a computer from the front panel. That then told the computer how to read a teletype tape.

I have also used the old IBM card reader computers and done programming with quite a few versions of Basic including two of the early IBM PC Basics, GW-Basic, FreeBasic, and TrueBasic, Fortran, Perl, SAS, Xampp, DOS, CGI Internet Server programming, and on and on. I still use Windows DOS quite a bit for doing things such as selectively copying large number of files from one disk to another.

There is no computer language that I can’t learn. It is simply a matter of spending the required amount of time on something. So, it comes down to “Is it worth the effort to learn another language.” Roger and I agreed that we would switch to using FreeBasic. But it had some limitations and he eventually decided to abandon it.

TrueBasic hogs 100% of the processor time. So it is basically incompatible with Windows. While running it will fight with other Windows programs for control of the computer processor. The TrueBasic graphics are also largely incompatible with Windows. When you copy the program from computer to computer the graphics can be totally different.

Perl in contrast is polite. When you tell it to sleep for 10 seconds it essentially stops using the processor. And even when it is running it allows Windows to decide which program should get access to the processor time.

Something I discovered with some surprise in the past few days is that my primary computer is actually a 64 bit system that is running 32 bit Windows. I always thought that it was a 32 bit computer.

It has plenty of memory and speed and a dual core processor. So I am now thinking about upgrading to 64 bit Windows 7. Windows 8 is I believe largely intended for touch screen use. It looks a lot different than other versions of Windows. And I don’t know if there would be an advantage in selecting 8 over 7.

I am also planning to ask the Perl people if 64 bit Perl can run on a 64 bit computer that is running 32 bit Windows Vista. And I planning to ask them if there is a module that can be merged with Perl that will let it do faster calculations.

My programs need to continue using Perl mainly. They will then run as CGI programs. But for certain routines such as when fast calculations have to be done I would also like to get that extra speed. And if there isn't a way to do that with Perl by itself then having it call an XBasic program to do the math could be a good way to go since TrueBasic doesn’t seem to work too well with Windows.

These are personal opinions.