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Python is the new BASIC

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Re: Python is the new BASIC

#131

Post by david927 »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #25
david927 wrote: post #13

Yesterday I had to explain to my 9-year-old daughter that the bug in her Python script was due to the fact that she indented with a tab and not four spaces. Trying to publish her program so that her friends could use it was a nightmare (it's a console app). It's 2015 and we have the brightest minds working on this stuff and it's all shit.

There are linters to handle syntax issues like tabs for spaces. Furthermore every text editor I've ever used has supported automatic handling of tabs/spaces and how many to indent. Not sure on publishing but maybe try packaging it properly (I believe python apps can be wrapped into .exe files) and putting the package into something like dropbox folder? It's 2015 and these problems are solved already.

Linters

I take back "brightest minds"

Re: Python is the new BASIC

#132

Post by giancarlostoro »

eterm wrote: post #16
giancarlostoro wrote: post #12

I learned Visual Basic 6 as my first language. I appreciated that my application could for the most part run on any Windows machine without a massive framework as a requirement. Don't get me wrong though, I love .NET entirely! I just enjoyed Visual Basic 6, because it felt native, and to some degree was. I still wish there was a native solution with a RAD environment like that, Delphi is nice but the syntax is quite…

Didn't VB6 applications in the most part require the visual basic runtime? (Although I think there was an option to compile to native?)

I believe up to VB5, then in VB6 it was finally natively compiled. I had projects in VB6 that people would try to decompile, the best they got was Assembly. Unlike .NET which without external tools will give you back almost everything (except of course comments).

Re: Python is the new BASIC

#133

Post by vram22 »

32bitkid wrote: post #87

Anecdotally, I recently went back and did some QuickBasic 4.5 programming, and was surprised how decent the experience actually was. I was on a retro kick, and was working backward/up to to doing some IBM PCjr hardware cartridge programming/ROM design. I still have a stack of old programming books from the mid 80's and early 90's and it was great to dust them off and re-read them with a fresh/older set of eyes. I end…

>I was on a retro kick

Retro programming can be great fun. I dive into it - a little - every now and then. E.g. Turbo Pascal 3, Turbo C 2, Icon, Forth, BASIC even. I think I still have a copy of Delphi 1 on CD - it came as a promo with a UK computer magazine I bought at a roadside newsstand. And used it to write some small apps. Surprisingly the apps worked even on much later versions of Windows than were current when Delphi 1 was released, though of course the widgets looked old-style.

Also fun is exploring offbeat languages (that are not retro). Pike and ElastiC come to mind as ones I've checked out, and there are others.

Re: Python is the new BASIC

#134

Post by AlSweigart »

ZitchDog wrote: post #14

Nope, sorry. Python is an easy, good language. Basic was not popular because it was easy, or even good, it was popular because it was everywhere. JavaScript, for all its warts and foibles, is the new basic. It's easy enough, and it's everywhere.

We're looking at it from modern eyes though. Compare BASIC to the other programming languages of the 70s and 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_programming_languag...

* Pascal * Prolog * C/C++ * Ada * MATLAB * Eiffel * Erlang * Perl * Tcl

If I were a beginner, I'd take BASIC over most of those. BASIC does have warts and having it ubiquitous did help its adoption, but the language itself was "easy to use" for its day. (Perl is pretty good, but BASIC had a two decade head start on it.)

Re: Python is the new BASIC

#135

Post by lectrick »

bite_victim wrote: post #55
lectrick wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that PHP is hated by anyone who learned PHP and moved onto other, ostensibly better things is the reason why all the hate exists. Given any programming task, you're just going to end up with better code in pretty much any other language, especially a functional one.

> Given any programming task, you're just going to end up with better code in pretty much any other language, especially a functional one. This is the exact bull * that good hearted Haskell and Lisp guys have to face and fix because of arrogant people like you. First of all, a good PHP programmer is a good programmer. End of story. You can write crystal clear code in PHP that anyone who started with C (how many I won…

> arrogant people like you

I spent 5 years working with ASP (very similar to PHP especially in the ability to create spaghetti code). In PHP's defense, I wrote an eBay-like site in one night using it. I also know Lisp, some Haskell, BASIC, Pascal, spent 10 years (!) on Ruby, know Clojure, Erlang, JS...

I think I know my shit, I'm 43 and have been basically coding since I was 12 on a Commodore PET... And although PHP lets you get something up quick... It will always be a challenge to create a team-maintainable codebase with it.

PHP doesn't even pass its own test suite. And they do not realize why this is bad? This is the hallmark of hubris.

It's not "arrogance" you're seeing, man. It is the cold hard weight of experience building and maintaining large codebases for years in various languages.

Re: Python is the new BASIC

#136

Post by JupiterMoon »

david927 wrote: post #131
JupiterMoon wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are linters to handle syntax issues like tabs for spaces. Furthermore every text editor I've ever used has supported automatic handling of tabs/spaces and how many to indent. Not sure on publishing but maybe try packaging it properly (I believe python apps can be wrapped into .exe files) and putting the package into something like dropbox folder? It's 2015 and these problems are solved already.

Linters I take back "brightest minds"

Why?

Re: Python is the new BASIC

#137

Post by dpcan »

jawns wrote: post #68
dpcan wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably the best point here by far. I didn't start learning to program because I wanted to program, I learned to program because I saw a file called GORILLA.BAS in one of the folders on my MS-DOS machine. Once I figured out I could open it in QBASIC and just press F5.... that was it... I would be a programmer for my next 20+ years and counting. EDIT: I would also like to point out how important the QBASIC IDE was as…

My experience almost exactly mirrors yours. When I was in grade school, there was a shared computer in the hallway outside the eighth-grade classroom, and if the teachers trusted you enough, you could stay in and use it instead of going outside for recess. A few buddies and I would congregate around the PC and play Gorillas. And once we figured out how to edit the source code and do weird things with gravity, or caus…

Yes, thank you, I almost forgot about how it really began with tweaking the code for the game itself! Great memories. Reminds me of how so many old games had .dat files (or something similar) that you could mess with initial settings or screw with the sounds.

This gives me a good idea for teaching my kids to program. Why start from scratch? I'm going to give them a game like this, with code, and see if they can do something crazy with it!

P.S. For me, I became the computer lab teacher's assistant in order to skip recesses or other activities in middle school. Fixed printers, made .bat file menus, good times.

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