30 years later, QBasic is still the best • Hacker News Board

Re: 30 years later, QBasic is still the best

#121

Post by voidlogic » Thu, May 05, 2016, 5:52 PM UTC

kmill wrote: post #111

jbandela1 wrote: post #67

For young children, QBasic and goto may indeed be superior to more structured languages. From a neuro development perspective we know that young children are very concrete and have limited abstraction ability. With Basic and goto, a program is more concrete (you run a line which is more or less 1 command) and linear (no nested structures). With structured programming, it is more abstract, and has an recursive structu…

QBasic was one of my first languages I learned (as a young child), and I am fairly certain I rarely used goto, since the language does have if/for/do/while. Interpreting these structures is still fairly linear, since each part manipulates some variables, and possibly jumps to one of the delimiters (if to end, do from loop, etc.) The language even has some structured procedure/function definitions, though I didn't gra…

>And as an aside: in no way did I end up with the brain damage Dijkstra would have predicted

FWIW QBASIC is pretty advanced compared the the BASIC Dijkstra's comment was referring too.

Re: 30 years later, QBasic is still the best

#122

Post by jovanni » Thu, May 05, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #56

chocolatebunny wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked at Scratch?

I think Scratch is the wrong approach to teaching programming altogether. It's cute but it doesn't give the same thrill as turning text into action.

I think the "thrill of turning text into action" might be an adult sentiment. I wouldn't write this off.

I decided I wanted to learn to "program" when I was 8, but I had no mentors, and no adults I knew could tell me how programs were made. I found QBasic lurking in the C drive, and got some books from the library, but without anyone to help my 8 year old brain couldn't get far alone. I got it to switch resolutions and draw some static pictures, but nothing else. I was frustrated.

Eventually I found and started playing with Games Factory, then Multimedia fusion from Clickteam, which is is sort of related to this, programming without typing. It was something my 10-year old self could understand on its own! I got a solid intuition of thinking in logic, and. Being able to set up some crazy causes and effects myself was really exciting. I made some "cool" stuff, for a 10 year old.

Once I found that limiting I tried to learn text-based programming again and by that time I was able to read code and puzzle out what it did from the concepts I learned. Maybe being a couple years older helped too.

I can't stand using tools like that as an adult, but without visual programming, I probably would've given up. Yet I paid my way through college writing Java/AS3/C, and now I made a living in games.

Re: 30 years later, QBasic is still the best

#123

Post by edtechdev » Thu, May 05, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

Try to teach your kids programming this way, and you are more than likely only going to turn them off programming for many years. There is actual research on teaching kids how to code.

Personally, I would start with code.org or Scratch. If you have an ipad, there is Hopscotch. Here is a huge list of more tools to teach young kids programming: http://bit.ly/ortonacode

But if you start with basic or python, you'll be teaching them that coding is basically similar to solving boring puzzles - not of any real use, and not as fun as videogames.

Start instead with something they would find motivating or useful, not you. Making a game, or creating a useful little app/tool that solves some problem they think is important, etc.

Re: 30 years later, QBasic is still the best

#124

Post by mineshaftgap » Thu, May 05, 2016, 5:58 PM UTC

The best thing about QBasic was direct access to the sound card.

Re: 30 years later, QBasic is still the best

#125

Post by jdbernard » Thu, May 05, 2016, 6:04 PM UTC

edtechdev wrote: post #123

Try to teach your kids programming this way, and you are more than likely only going to turn them off programming for many years. There is actual research on teaching kids how to code. Personally, I would start with code.org or Scratch. If you have an ipad, there is Hopscotch. Here is a huge list of more tools to teach young kids programming: http://bit.ly/ortonacode But if you start with basic or python, you'll be t…

I would love to see the research you are referencing.

> Start instead with something they would find motivating or useful, not you. Making a game, or creating a useful little app/tool that solves some problem they think is important, etc.

The thing is, I can't look into their head. Before my children had done any programming whatsoever I had no concrete reference point for the type of programming they would enjoy. My best reference point was my own experience being their age. And when I was their age this approach was the interesting, fun way to do it. This is a very common story. It is anecdote and suffers from all of the bias and unreliability that entails. But then again I've seen lots of un-reproducible "research" that suffers from bias and unwarranted assumptions also, especially when it concerns human behavior and motivation. I'd love to see, specifically, the research you are referencing.

Re: 30 years later, QBasic is still the best

#126

Post by jmiserez » Thu, May 05, 2016, 6:04 PM UTC

wvenable wrote: post #21

jasode wrote: post #11

>to realize that in more than 30 years, we have not been able to come up with something better for our kids: Qbasic ..., but we have never really made a simpler or more direct access to the thrill of programming than QBasic. First, I think it's really cool that he's exposing a young mind to programming. But I'm also old enough to have installed QBasic from floppy disks and part of me thinks his statements I quoted ar…

I agree with your complaints about QBasic but I disagree a bit about JavaScript. You are totally right that the environment being right there in the browser is great. But if you press F12 right now you'll find an amazing complex dialog box -- as a professional you just implicitly skip over that complexity. And JavaScript is a significantly more difficult language than QBasic even if it's one of the simpler profession…

Visual Basic 6.0 was great for learning how to program!

You could create GUIs and easily share self-contained exes with your friends. Also very cool was the documentation, complete, offline and and with lots of examples.

I initially got into programming through Apple HyperCard/HyperTalk on the outdated school computers, but it was rather clunky and limiting in what you could do without going through the C interface.

Re: 30 years later, QBasic is still the best

#127

Post by Narishma » Thu, May 05, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

jbandela1 wrote: post #67

For young children, QBasic and goto may indeed be superior to more structured languages. From a neuro development perspective we know that young children are very concrete and have limited abstraction ability. With Basic and goto, a program is more concrete (you run a line which is more or less 1 command) and linear (no nested structures). With structured programming, it is more abstract, and has an recursive structu…

Aren't you confusing QBasic with some older BASICs? QBasic is a structured language. It has blocks, functions, different kinds of loops, custom types... It doesn't require gotos or line numbers, though it supports them for backwards compatibility.

Re: 30 years later, QBasic is still the best

#128

Post by username3 » Thu, May 05, 2016, 6:09 PM UTC

QBASIC.js

QBASICScript

QBASIC in a browser

Re: 30 years later, QBasic is still the best

#129

Post by nsxwolf » Thu, May 05, 2016, 6:10 PM UTC

todd8 wrote: post #92

takno wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does anybody at all know what more than 2 buttons do on their microwave? I thought they were mostly there for decoration

The real problem is there is no ISO Standard for the appliance interfaces. Do you press power level first? Or time first. Is it Forth like, numbers then operation or Haskell like, Function then number. My refrigerator has illuminated bars indicating how cold it is set for. Even after downloading a pdf of the user guide I can't figure out if I'm setting it correctly. Placing a thermometer inside and using trial and er…

And why does every single key press have to beep??

Re: 30 years later, QBasic is still the best

#130

Post by amelius » Thu, May 05, 2016, 6:11 PM UTC

Narishma wrote: post #127

jbandela1 wrote: post #67

For young children, QBasic and goto may indeed be superior to more structured languages. From a neuro development perspective we know that young children are very concrete and have limited abstraction ability. With Basic and goto, a program is more concrete (you run a line which is more or less 1 command) and linear (no nested structures). With structured programming, it is more abstract, and has an recursive structu…

Aren't you confusing QBasic with some older BASICs? QBasic is a structured language. It has blocks, functions, different kinds of loops, custom types... It doesn't require gotos or line numbers, though it supports them for backwards compatibility.

Yes, but it does not have closures, which are somewhat further removed from the bare metal.

All the constructs you mentioned have an almost trivial mapping to assembly language.