You might have partly misinterpreted what I was saying. I wasn’t trying to say that XBasic doesn’t work or that it is not worth using. I was saying that if Python can do everything that XBasic can and a lot more then why not use Python? It is an actively developed language with plenty of support.

XBasic would be easy for me to learn. In making those comments regarding key press input etc. I went through the XBasic download documentation and could not find anything that looked like it worked like a Get statement etc. But it might have been that the documentation was not clear. In any case it doesn’t matter.

The question that you did not answer is, “Can Python do calculations as fast as XBasic?”

The most important point is that if multiple parties are going to work on any projects then they should initially decide on what programming languages they are going to use. I myself would probably continue doing some Perl programming as it can be used for CGI programs.

I have to propose that Roger’s favorite TrueBasic is probably not the direction to head. Gnuplot also looks like a dead end. It can probably do a lot. But the Gnuplot Newsgroup people aren’t sufficiently interested or helpful.

XBasic looks a lot better than either of them. But Python might be even better than XBasic. At this point I don’t know if that is the case. From what I understand, Python does have extensive math and graphics capabilities.

From my experience I would say that the general rule here is that the use of the most active and best supported language is the most efficient and productive approach.

It would be much easier to simply have an .exe Perl program read the keyboard and also send information back and forth to Windows and an XBasic program than to try to develop specialized Windows code. The Perl program could also interact with other Windows programs quite easily using "Pipes" etc.

The .exe Perl program that Roger and I used in the past is not very large. And it runs with plenty of speed without hogging the processor. We used it to get my forecasting Perl program, Roger’s TrueBasic programs, and Gnuplot to all work together. It will run on any Windows system and could also be converted quite easily to run on Linux.

So, how does Python compare in calculation speed with XBasic? And if they are anywhere near one another with regard to speed then why not just use Python? I am not recommending that anyone else use Perl for anything other than a central control program that can very easily and effectively manage the operations of other programs.