MapBasic is a minimalistic program that will help you in editing your .MB files (scripts to be used with MapInfo Professional).
First you have to extract all files to a temporary folder (like c:\mapbasic) and run the setup.exe file. This will launch the installer program, which by the way resembles Office 2000/XP installation program a lot, but it takes just a couple of minutes to install.
It's important to point the requirement of Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 preinstalled in order to install/use this program, and if you want to Run your source code (rather than just compile it), then you will need to install the MapInfo Professional software.
At least, you have a few samples to guide you in several programming languages, like C++, .NET, Delphi and more.
Pros
- It's freeware
Cons
- Of course you need some MapInfo skills to dominate it
- Requires .NET Framework 2.0 and MapInfo installed to test your scripts