[Feature Request] Add VB-like `while ... end while` (etc) syntax synonyms to provide better consistency for those who desire it.
Hey, I'm a newbie to Free Basic and have honestly never really used it except to mess around on it for a few minutes. However, I have repeatedly come back to the website off and on over the years (over a whole decade or more) because the mostly beautiful syntax and the prospect of a more refined alternative to plain C (among other things) attracts me to it significantly at least in principle.
However, one of the things (which is admittedly petty/trivial) that puts me off the prospect of using it a bit is the presence of a handful of syntactic abnormalities that mar what would otherwise be a beautiful syntax. (The other big thing is uncertainty about building a real project on it and problems with installing it such as missing library warnings.)
Anyway, foremost among the syntax turn offs is the while ... wend convention, which is like a giant eyesore on the syntax of the language and a huge inconsistency in the presence of the many other (much more logical) control_structure ... end control_structure style syntax items.
It would be really appealing if Free Basic provided synonyms for all of the control structures that enabled users to use a more logically consistent structure for a better experience. Thus for example, Free Basic could add while ... end while and for ... end for (etc) as synonyms on top of the existing QBasic-like syntax forms, so that a fully consistent convention is available. That way (by being merely synonyms, just as several such syntax synonyms already exist in the language) it wouldn't cause any real harm.
This could also increase the number of Visual Basic (VB) users willing to try Free Basic and make them less likely to be be turned off by Free Basic's syntax convention inconsistencies and would also make Free Basic modestly more compatible with simple cases of Visual Basic code. Naturally, such a move may also attract more maintainers and contributors and users to the project, to the benefit of all.
This feature is very simple would just require adding new syntax forms and thus would probably not be too hard or laborious. Yet, despite how simple the idea is, it could potentially draw in a fair bit of VB users. I'm not personally one (I've never really used Visual Basic either) but I admit that Free Basic and Visual Basic have some very attractive syntax aspects, especially if their syntax were refined just a little bit more.