As a heavy FreeBASIC user for 13 years, I like to describe it as a subset of C++98 with BASIC syntax and decent builtin strings. Unlike C++ it compiles very qui

As a heavy FreeBASIC user for 13 years, I like to describe it as a subset of C++98 with BASIC syntax and decent builtin strings. Unlike C++ it compiles very quickly, and if you want faster code, it can emit C code and compile via gcc. the very nice fbfrog tool automatically translates C headers to FB headers, so you can use almost any C-compatible library and do almost anything you can do in C. Using it like C is not necessary a good idea. Compared to all other BASIC dialects I've tried (which doesn't include VB), it seems better engineered. Compared to C, the main drawback is the immaturity of the compiler, and error messages are often poor.