[Coco] Happy Birthday BASIC!

[Salvador Garcia]

Thanks Glen! I agree with you in that BASIC is a capable language. I too believe that having "Beginner" in its name categorized BASIC as a classroom token language.

Other reasons why it was looked down upon:

1. It was interpreted, which meant that it was slow as compared to a compiled language.
2. It had line number, which made it look clumsy and tedious to insert code (the renum command was a fix)
3. It was not structured. After C++ came out, it introduced the programmer to classes and OOP BASIC had none of this, still relying on GOSUB and GOTO
4. It had the GOTO statement which was shunned. Programmers were excommunicated if they used GOTO in other languages (C, C++)

The above are personal thoughts. As BASIC evolved into True BASIC or into Quick Basic and then Visual basic the opinion about it did not change. VB. NET programmer are still a pay grade below C# programmers (ironically, both of these languages are interpreted, except that now it is called levels of abstraction). Rumor abound about MS discontinuing VB, although it is now a fully capable OOP language.

As others have mentioned BASIC was also my first language. The first personal computer that I used was a TRS-80 Model I. I've had the opportunity to bang out BASIC code for the TRS 80 Mod I, Sinclair ZX80/81, Color Computer I, Atari 800, Apple II, Timex Sinclair 1000 and IBM PC XT and AT clones (gwbasic under MS-DOS). Salvador

      From: Glen Hewlett <glen.hewlett at sympatico.ca>
 To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com> 
 Sent: Tuesday, May 2, 2017 3:54 PM
 Subject: Re: [Coco] Happy Birthday BASIC!
   
I don’t know if it’s just me but I had always felt that BASIC was looked down upon by most serious programmers in the 80’s and 90’s.  I always thought it was an awesome language and easy to write programs with.  Super quick development/test/debug times and easy to learn.

Maybe because of the name Beginner’s All purpose Symbolic Instruction Code had the name Beginner in it made it so that it was looked down at, I don’t know.  Sure there are more powerful languages but for general purpose programming on an old computer I think BASIC is awesome.

I’m still fighting with my Pacman transcode in 100% assembly, but I have written some programs in BASIC on the CoCo to help me convert the ROM graphics from the original hardware into something the CoCo 3 can use and it was a joy.  I also wrote some BASIC code to convert graphic sprites into compiled sprites and enjoyed the experience on the CoCo.

FYI - There is a compiler for QB for Windows, Mac, Linux and Android called QB64 that takes your BASIC program and compiles it into a super fast machine language program native to your computer.  I only mention it since Quick Basic is VERY similar to CoCo Basic and someone here might get a kick out of using it.  It can be found here: http://www.qb64.net/

Cheers,
Glen

> On May 2, 2017, at 4:11 PM, Wayne Campbell <asa.rand at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> It is there, albeit as a brief allusion to the fact:
> 
> History -> Origin
> 2nd paragraph
> 3rd sentence reads:
> 
> "Wanting use of the language to become widespread, its designers made the
> compiler available free of charge."
> 
> Wayne
> 
> On May 2, 2017 11:44 AM, "Salvador Garcia via Coco" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> wrote:
> 
>> Something that I did not locate in that Wiki entry is that the original
>> BASIC was a compiled language.
>> 
>> Seeing how many shunned BASIC because it was interpreted, I believe that
>> this is an important item.
>> 
>> And if anyone feels nostalgic, you can still program like it is 1964 here:
>> 
>> http://www.vintageisthenewold.com/program-in-basic-like-it-is-1964/
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Salvador
>> 
>> 
>>      From: Frank Pittel <fpittel at gmail.com>
>> To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
>> Sent: Tuesday, May 2, 2017 11:10 AM
>> Subject: [Coco] Happy Birthday BASIC!
>> 
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BASIC
>> 
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