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Fuze - Thoughts and Complaints Blog
30th August 2019
Mostly complaints..


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Fuze "tries" to be two things at once.
Both a classic BASIC, and a more modern "Not BASIC", and when those two things clash, you either get a great language like BlitzMax, or you get ..

Well, Fuze..

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BASIC or not?


There are times when Fuze tries to be BASIC. Pixels drawn on an 8x8 sprite need to be drawn in a grid of 1 to 8 across and 1 to 8 down.
Which is a very retro BASIC thing.

There are times when Fuze wants to be a modern language. For NotNext Loops follow the "up to but not including" methodology of languages that work differently to BASIC.
eg, in BASIC : For n=1 to 8 : will count 1 through 8.
in C++/Javascript/PHP/et all, you'd need to write for (n=1;n<9;n++)
It counts up to, but not including the last number.

FUZE requires you to do n=1 to 9, which is all kinds of messed up, because it's trying to be BOTH Basic and C/etc at the same time.
It's a crazy broken mix between 0-based numbering and 1-based numbering, and the two are often at odds with each other, with the language uncertain which it wants to use.

Interface Delays


The interface is also extremely frustrating, with a "nice" swooping swooshing GUI that ultimately ends up slowing everything down.
When I need to "glance" at a command in the help file, I can tap F1 to bring it up, then Escape to close it.. Except it takes about half a second to Swoop the interface in, and then another half a second to Swoop it away.
It's not a long time, but if you're "glancing" at a bunch of commands for quick tips, it soon adds up to a frustrating experience..

To add further injury, my bluetooth keyboard's shift-status seems inverted..
Holding shift produces lowercase letters. Not holding shift produces uppercase letters. .. But the number/symbol keys are behaving normally, so.. There's DEFINITELY a bug in there.
Turning capslock on only forces everything to be capitals. So, no help there!

Overall


All in all, I found the experience a frustrating one.
The language is indeed more powerful than PetitCom4. It allows you do 3D things, and has a vast library of images and sounds to play with.
But ultimately, I'd rather stick to PetitCom4. It's smaller, it's neater, and it just basically works better.

In my opinion!

Rating : 6/10

If you can't get access to PetitCom4 (currently Japanese only, unless you faff about with alt-accounts) then ... I guess it's alright..
But Petit's the definite winner, in my books.

I've written a lengthy whinge over at Socoder, if you want to read more gripes!
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