BASIC at 50 • Hacker News Board

Re: BASIC at 50

#21

Post by watmough » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 9:36 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #15

astral303 wrote: post #2

When I was little, back in post-Soviet Russia (circa early 1990's), the prevailing progression of a developer was "learn BASIC, learn Pascal, then learn C". And, if you were extra badass, you'd learn assembly. BASIC was the first step, simple and easily accessible on most computers of the day (ZX Spectrum, MSX, Atari, GWBasic/QBasic on MS-DOS). Best of all, being an interpreted language meant that you often had the s…

> I wonder what today's generation growing up on? Pretty much every 8-bit came with a BASIC[1]. I would imagine a lot of kids today don't program anything since it is much less accessible. 1) had to buy the cartridge for the Atari 8-bits

Yeah, similar experience here, but when every web browser (to some approximation) includes Javascript, you can hardly say that programming is inaccessible.

In most every possible way (except possibly writing files), Javascript simply wipes the floor with Basic.

Re: BASIC at 50

#22

Post by vivin » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 9:39 PM UTC

k-mcgrady wrote: post #11

astral303 wrote: post #2

When I was little, back in post-Soviet Russia (circa early 1990's), the prevailing progression of a developer was "learn BASIC, learn Pascal, then learn C". And, if you were extra badass, you'd learn assembly. BASIC was the first step, simple and easily accessible on most computers of the day (ZX Spectrum, MSX, Atari, GWBasic/QBasic on MS-DOS). Best of all, being an interpreted language meant that you often had the s…

>> "I think there's a whole generation that grew up on BASIC. I wonder what today's generation growing up on?" About 6 years ago when I was in high school we were using...Pascal! During that time I actually did some work experience with Borland (creators of Turbo Pascal) and they found it hilarious we were still using it.

Ahh Borland! We used to use Borland C++ in high school (back in the late 90's).

Re: BASIC at 50

#23

Post by blt » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 9:46 PM UTC

Zardoz84 wrote: post #10

My first approach to programming was Sinclair BASIC of a ZX Spectrum +3 . I learn soem stuff with a books of "BASIC for childrens", and the ZX spectrum +3 manual. I remember doing a program to study multiplication tables, printing it, and then asking me for the values... Good old times.

Funny how people perceive programming as way more advanced than multiplication, but you could write this program before you memorized the multiplication tables.

I think the sequence of topics in math education is really wrong. Another example: in the USA, "discrete math" is a college class at the same level as calculus (or higher!), even though it mostly builds off elementary algebra.

Re: BASIC at 50

#24

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 10:00 PM UTC

wiremine wrote: post #4

astral303 wrote: post #2

When I was little, back in post-Soviet Russia (circa early 1990's), the prevailing progression of a developer was "learn BASIC, learn Pascal, then learn C". And, if you were extra badass, you'd learn assembly. BASIC was the first step, simple and easily accessible on most computers of the day (ZX Spectrum, MSX, Atari, GWBasic/QBasic on MS-DOS). Best of all, being an interpreted language meant that you often had the s…

> I wonder what today's generation growing up on? Take here to ask the same question. What hooked me on BASIC was the graphic capabilities. It was relatively easy to create dumb little graphic programs: circles that changed colors and grew, etc.

Unless you ended up using a Commodore 64 or one of its ancestors which was completely sprite-oriented and thus not much good for canvas-type programming. I've often thought my life might have been different if I had asked my parents to get me a Sinclair spectrum instead of relying on the fact that our school had Commodore computers to push them towards a Vic-20.

Re: BASIC at 50

#25

Post by _sh » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 10:02 PM UTC

The story of Sweet 16, Steve Wozniak ports BASIC to the Apple II.

http://www.6502.org/source/interpreters/sweet16.htm

"While writing Apple BASIC, I ran into the problem of manipulating the 16 bit pointer data and its arithmetic in an 8 bit machine..."

Re: BASIC at 50

#26

Post by gamegoblin » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 10:02 PM UTC

astral303 wrote: post #2

When I was little, back in post-Soviet Russia (circa early 1990's), the prevailing progression of a developer was "learn BASIC, learn Pascal, then learn C". And, if you were extra badass, you'd learn assembly. BASIC was the first step, simple and easily accessible on most computers of the day (ZX Spectrum, MSX, Atari, GWBasic/QBasic on MS-DOS). Best of all, being an interpreted language meant that you often had the s…

I am 21, and when I was 12 I started coding with TI-BASIC, which is a (terrible, terrible) flavor of BASIC that comes on most TI graphing calculators. Most kids still have these calculators, so I imagine there are several learning on it.

Re: BASIC at 50

#27

Post by stevekemp » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 10:05 PM UTC

Zardoz84 wrote: post #10

My first approach to programming was Sinclair BASIC of a ZX Spectrum +3 . I learn soem stuff with a books of "BASIC for childrens", and the ZX spectrum +3 manual. I remember doing a program to study multiplication tables, printing it, and then asking me for the values... Good old times.

Mine was on the 48k Spectrum, a lovely machine, even though the BASIC was a little non-standard, and I had to work out how to change listings in magazines to work on it!

My progression went: Spectrum BASIC, Z80 assembler, x86 assembler, C, Java .. more.

Re: BASIC at 50

#28

Post by anigbrowl » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 10:20 PM UTC

watmough wrote: post #21

protomyth wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder what today's generation growing up on? Pretty much every 8-bit came with a BASIC[1]. I would imagine a lot of kids today don't program anything since it is much less accessible. 1) had to buy the cartridge for the Atari 8-bits

Yeah, similar experience here, but when every web browser (to some approximation) includes Javascript, you can hardly say that programming is inaccessible. In most every possible way (except possibly writing files), Javascript simply wipes the floor with Basic.

It's highly available but not accessible, ie immediately graspable by a new user. For example, most tutorials take the view that before you can write any JS you first have to know (or learn about) creating a basic web page. Of course, this is quite often what people want to do, but on the other hand they might be better off using node.js or some other hosted interpreter like http://math.chapman.edu/~jipsen/js/

I think there's a lot of value in letting people approach programming through doing very simple stuff such as automating calculations. Of course a potential downside to that, which was a big problem for Basic, is that this can get in the way of learning about program structure early on and encourages spaghetti code.

Re: BASIC at 50

#29

Post by protomyth » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 10:25 PM UTC

watmough wrote: post #21

protomyth wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wonder what today's generation growing up on? Pretty much every 8-bit came with a BASIC[1]. I would imagine a lot of kids today don't program anything since it is much less accessible. 1) had to buy the cartridge for the Atari 8-bits

Yeah, similar experience here, but when every web browser (to some approximation) includes Javascript, you can hardly say that programming is inaccessible. In most every possible way (except possibly writing files), Javascript simply wipes the floor with Basic.

Except the cost, no replacements for those cheap 8-bits such as the ZX-81, Vic 20, or Atari 400. Computer programming is less accessible than in the late 70's and early 80's.

Re: BASIC at 50

#30

Post by muyuu » Mon, Apr 07, 2014, 10:45 PM UTC

astral303 wrote: post #2

When I was little, back in post-Soviet Russia (circa early 1990's), the prevailing progression of a developer was "learn BASIC, learn Pascal, then learn C". And, if you were extra badass, you'd learn assembly. BASIC was the first step, simple and easily accessible on most computers of the day (ZX Spectrum, MSX, Atari, GWBasic/QBasic on MS-DOS). Best of all, being an interpreted language meant that you often had the s…

I started in the mid-late 80s at 4-5 years old, first BASIC and then straight to assembly. I think my first full game in assembly (which was pretty simple) I made it at around 9 years of age. 6502 assembly is very easy, you just really needed a good book, or a patient parent, and you were sent. The machine was grokkable.

To be fair this approach has many merits with the computers of the time. My main machines were a Commodore 64 (8-bit) and then the Amiga (16 bit models that were very popular by 1988~1991, although the later Amigas are 32-bit). Lots of people followed this progression.

At the time many of us saw programming as a more advanced, "cooler" activity than just playing. It was admired in the nerdy circles that you came up with some clever routine in assembly that did something seemingly impossible for the machine.

I think the form of BASIC that came with the Commodore 128 is ideal for kids to learn. It even came with an asm monitor runnable directly from the BASIC prompt.

If I have kids I think I will teach them this way, it's so effective.