Editing PowerBASIC (section)

===Characteristics===
PowerBASIC is a native-code BASIC compiler whose reported merits are simplicity of use and speed compared to other languages.<ref>''New geometries for new materials'', Eric A. Lord, Alan
Lindsay Mackay, Srinivasa Ranganathan, Cambridge University Press, 2006, {{ISBN|0-521-86104-7}} ("a very simple user interface ... speed and power of the underlying C++ ... runs extremely fast") [https://books.google.com/books?id=s22_x-O8pEoC&pg=PP3&vq=%22powerbasic%22&dq=%22powerBASIC%22&source=gbs_search_s&sig=uxOcCJGJsvTcUWasxzAaeRiDx3o Google Books]</ref><ref>''Chaos and Time-series Analysis'', Julien C. Sprott, Oxford University Press, 2003, {{ISBN|0-19-850840-9}} ("easy to learn, powerful, and as fast as any C compiler I have encountered") [https://books.google.com/books?id=SEDjdjPZ158C&pg=PR6&vq=PowerBASIC&dq=%22powerBASIC%22&source=gbs_search_s&sig=SBPpyPfT7S2V_-ixWTYrYvlEnZI Google Books]</ref>
Although the compiled code is fast enough for most purposes, the compilers also support inline [[assembly language|assembler]] which can be used for hand optimization of critical routines. The Windows compilers (PBWin & PBCC) support almost all of the [[x86 instruction listings|x86 instruction set]], including [[floating-point unit|FPU]], [[Streaming SIMD Extensions|SIMD]], and [[MMX (instruction set)|MMX]], the main exceptions being a few which are useful mostly to systems programmers. One can insert any unsupported instructions by inserting their [[opcode]]s with the "db", "dw", and "dd" statements. Lines of assembler code can be freely interspersed with lines of BASIC code, although one must always consider the potential interactions between the two types of code.