Differences between version 22 and predecessor to the previous major change of BASIC.
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| Newer page: | version 22 | Last edited on Monday, May 2, 2005 4:09:47 am | by AristotlePagaltzis | Revert |
| Older page: | version 10 | Last edited on Saturday, September 13, 2003 1:08:54 pm | by GerwinVanDeSteeg | Revert |
@@ -1,23 +1,29 @@
-[Acronym] for __B__eginners __A__ll-Purpose __S__ymbolic __C__ode.
+[Acronym] for __B__eginners __A__ll-Purpose __S__ymbolic __I__nstruction
__C__ode (supposedly a [Backronym], made up after the name [BASIC] was already in use)
.
-(
This is supposedly
a "backronym
" - made up after the name BASIC was already in use).
+<verbatim>
+10 PRINT "
This is a"
+20 PRINT "Haiku program
"
+30 GOTO 10
+</verbatim>
-A simplistic interactive ProgrammingLanguage designed at Dartmouth University in the 1960's to teach mathematics students how to program. They would go on to programming in [Fortran] IV, so this is the language that Basic
most closely resembles.
+A simplistic interactive ProgrammingLanguage designed at Dartmouth University in the 1960's to teach mathematics students how to program. They would go on to programming in [Fortran] IV, so this is the language that [BASIC]
most closely resembles.
-BASIC's control structures are as primitive as those in AssemblyLanguage. A BASIC program
is series
of numbered statements that are usually executed in sequence. A GOTO statement sends execution to another statement. An IF statement does that conditionally. GOSUB
and RETURN call subroutines
.
+Not to be confused with VisualBasic, a wildly extended dialect of [
BASIC] that only resembles its ancestor remotely and
is still part
of MicrosoftCorporation's portfolio
and strategy
.
-Basic became very popular in
the era of HomeComputers because a Basic interpreter was small and simple and would fit in
[ROM
]. (Some
[PC
]s even had it
in ROM - INT 18
. I remember trying it in
[DOS
]'s debug program and the machine would lock up saying "
no basic rom installed" or something. Sad
.)
+In
the original
[BASIC
] language, the available control structures are as primitive as those in AssemblyLanguage
. A
[BASIC
] program is series of numbered statements that are usually executed
in sequence
. A __
[GOTO| GoTo
]__ statement sends execution to another statement. An __IF__ statement does that conditionally. Using __GOSUB__ and __RETURN__ you can implement subroutines, but there
's no stack to pass parameters with
.
-Lots
of little kids leaned to program in BASIC
. Some never recovered[2]. Every home computer had a different dialect
of BASIC
, so there are thousands
of dialect of BASIC
. One reason for this
is that BASIC is so pathetically limited it needs
to be heavily extended to make it useful. Most BASIC dialects still in use have been extended to strongly resemble [Pascal]
.
+As there are no structuring constructs, there is no concept
of scope, and every single variable is global
. In the absence
of user defined functions, expressiveness is extremely limited
, so you need a ''lot''
of temporary variables
. Combine these limitations, and the result
is that most [
BASIC] code
is a mess that ranges somewhere between "hideous" and "appalling", with occasional side trips
to "hair raising" and "seizure inducing"
.
-There
is no real use for BASIC on
[Linux
]. If you you think you want BASIC, then you'd probably be happier with
[Python
] and a good learn-Python textbook
.
+ ''It
is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that ~
[sic
] have had prior exposure to
[BASIC
]; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration
.''
+ <br> -- EdsgerWybeDijkstra
-Basic
is favoured by Microsoft for some reason
. Don't ask me why. They even made a "Visual" version. Maybe they were on drugs
.[1
]
+The language
is so pathetically limited that it needs to be heavily extended to be useful
. Of course, every implementor chose their own ways to do so, so there are thousands of dialects of [BASIC]
. Some have quite sophisticated extensions, and most of those still in use have been extended to strongly resemble
[Pascal
].
-----
-1
] Back when Bill Gates was real programmer he wrote Basic interpreters for
the first microcomputers (maybe he was on drugs), so he'
s had
a soft spot for Basic ever since
.
+[BASIC
] became very popular in
the era of HomeComputer~
s because
a [BASIC] interpreter is simple and so could easily be fit on a tiny [ROM]. Lots of little kids learned to program in one of the thousands of flavours of [BASIC] this way, some never to recover
.
-[2
] ''"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that
[[sic
] have
had prior exposure
to BASIC; as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration
."'' -- Dijkstra
+BillGates (who for all we know is probably one of those never-recovered
[BASIC
] kids) started MicrosoftCorporation selling
[BASIC] interpreters for various machines. Even the first
[PC
]s
had it in [ROM], waiting
to be activated by an __INT 18__ instruction
. ''(I remember trying it in [DOS]'s debug program, and the machine would lock up saying
"no BASIC ROM installed" or something. Sad..)
'' Ever since, MicrosoftCorporation's strategic products have been accompanied by ever evolving, ever less [BASIC]
-like dialects of the language. You have probably heard of VisualBasic, which is only the latest (series of) rendition(s).
------
-CategoryProgrammingLanguages
+There is no use for [BASIC] on [Linux]. If you you think you want [BASIC], then you'd probably be happier with [Python] and a good learn
-Python textbook.
+
+
----
+CategoryProgrammingLanguages, CategoryDeprecatedProgrammingLanguages
