BASIC Tools Statement of Purpose and Design - 21.02.2003
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The Basic code offered here was designed to look as much like neatly written
'C' code as possible, while maintaining its compatibility with the Microsoft
QuickBasic v4.5 and PDS v7.1 DOS compilers. The other major objective was to
be portable to Visual Basic, and to the 'C' language for general-purpose
applications programming.

Portability to Visual Basic is nearly 100%, since virtually all of the code
is in callable functions, and they can be copied directly into a VB project.
The only BASIC code that does not apply to VB is the DOS command-line user
interface code, which can be replaced in VB by text or message boxes.

Portability to 'C' varies depending on the skill level of users who attempt
to port the BASIC code to the 'C' language.  If you look at the 'INDENT.BAS'
code module, you will see a BASIC/VB parser that indents the code in all of
the VB projects I've worked with (approx. 2000 code modules with an average
of 3000 lines each), with 100% success. With a modest amount of rework, the
'INDENT.BAS' program can be made to convert the BASIC syntax to 'C' syntax.
