Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie

From	Russell Hafter News <see.sig@walkingingermany.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.sys.acorn.misc
Subject	Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie
Date	2011-11-10 09:20 +0000
Organization	Russell Hafter Holidays
Message-ID	<522fe086afsee.sig@walkingingermany.invalid> (permalink)
References	<84aa0ae1-0aec-47bb-b474-e9ebc767e855@n38g2000yqm.googlegroups.com> <9i0r35FvofU1@mid.individual.net>

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In article <9i0r35FvofU1@mid.individual.net>, Steffen Huber
<spam@huber-net.de> wrote:

> Michael J. Kerpan wrote::

> > Finally, what's up with the case- sensitivity in the
> > BASIC? The ability to hack together small programs in a
> > simple language is great, but the fact that one has to
> > ride the shift key in order to do so is a bit annoying.

> When I bought my first Archimedes, this was one thing
> that really annoyed me. Most RISC OS users probably come
> from an Acorn 8bit background, so they were already used
> to this user-unfriendly behaviour.

> I came from an Amstrad CPC background. While its
> Locomotive Basic lacked the nice PROC/FN/LIBRARY
> structuring that BBC BASIC has, there was one big
> advantage: you could type BASIC keywords in whatever case
> you liked, as soon as the tokenizer identified a keyword,
> it uppercased it automatically. This made it easy to spot
> typos, and was generally very user-firendly.

My first attempts at programming were in Applesoft(?) BASIC
on an Apple II, whose quirks are now long forgotten.

When my Scottish School sent me on a computer education
course, the powers that be had decided that all programming
in Scotland would be in BBC COMAL, so this is what we
learnt.

For the beginner it had many advantages over the then
available BASIC II on the BBC - proper structures such as
WHILE...THEN, REPEAT...UNTIL, IF...ELIF...ENDIF, CASE, as
well as procedures and functions, with parameters passed to
them.

It also automatically formatted primitives in upper case and
variables, procedure names etc in lower case, as well as
providing automatic on screen and printed formatting, with
indentation of structures and so on.

It also forced those whose early programming skill has made
use of endless GOTOs to think again...

The really galling bit though, is just inside the front
cover of the manual "The Acornsoft implementationof COMAL
was written by David Christensen, James Warwick and David
Evers, who at the time were all studying at Portsmouth
Grammar School."

I still use one or two programs in COMAL that I wrote at the
time or shortly afterward. Anyone else??

-- 
Russell
http://www.russell-hafter-holidays.co.uk
Russell Hafter Holidays         E-mail to enquiries at our domain
Need a hotel? <http://www.hrs.com/?client=en__blue&customerId=416873103>

Thread

Some observations from a RISC OS newbie "Michael J. Kerpan" <madcrow.maxwell@gmail.com> - 2011-11-07 14:57 -0800
  Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Rob Davison <nospamthanks@invalid.invalid> - 2011-11-08 17:34 +1300
    Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Ian Hamilton <Ian.Hamilton@AAUG.net> - 2011-11-08 06:41 +0000
    Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie cferris@freeRemoveuk.com.invalid - 2011-11-08 10:21 +0000
    Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Jim Nagel <jimnewsm10d@abbeypress.co.uk> - 2011-11-08 13:00 +0000
      Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie patric <patric@invalid.net> - 2011-11-08 13:22 +0000
  Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-08 07:27 +0100
    Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Tony Moore <old_coaster@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-08 11:12 +0000
    Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Kevin Wells <kevinwells@talktalk.net> - 2011-11-08 16:44 +0000
  Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie trevj <trevj@cwazy.co.uk> - 2011-11-08 04:02 -0800
  Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie "Ste (news)" <steve@revi11.plus.com> - 2011-11-09 00:30 +0000
    Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie "Michael J. Kerpan" <madcrow.maxwell@gmail.com> - 2011-11-08 21:24 -0800
      Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Stuart <Spambin@argonet.co.uk> - 2011-11-09 09:08 +0000
        Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie "Dave Plowman (News)" <dave@davenoise.co.uk> - 2011-11-09 10:10 +0000
          Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie cferris@freeRemoveuk.com.invalid - 2011-11-11 11:06 +0000
            Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie JV <groups@wellowvillage.co.uk> - 2011-11-11 13:06 +0000
        Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie "Michael J. Kerpan" <madcrow.maxwell@gmail.com> - 2011-11-09 07:10 -0800
          Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie trevj <trevj@cwazy.co.uk> - 2011-11-10 04:05 -0800
            Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Theo Markettos <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2011-11-10 14:07 +0000
            Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie "David Holden" <SpamBin@apdl.co.uk> - 2011-11-10 15:54 +0000
              Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie David Pitt <pittdj@pittdj.co.uk> - 2011-11-10 17:21 +0000
                Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie "David Holden" <SpamBin@apdl.co.uk> - 2011-11-10 19:16 +0000
                Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie trevj <trevj@cwazy.co.uk> - 2011-11-10 13:17 -0800
      Case-sensitivity in BBC BASIC (was: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie) Harriet Bazley <bazley@feathermail.co.uk> - 2011-11-16 13:52 +0000
        Re: Case-sensitivity in BBC BASIC (was: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie) Tim Hill <tim@invalid.org.uk> - 2011-11-20 16:17 +0000
  Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Steffen Huber <spam@huber-net.de> - 2011-11-10 03:26 +0100
    Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Russell Hafter News <see.sig@walkingingermany.invalid> - 2011-11-10 09:20 +0000
      Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Steve Drain <steve@kappa.me.uk> - 2011-11-10 18:29 +0000
        Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Russell Hafter News <see.sig@walkingingermany.invalid> - 2011-11-10 18:54 +0000
          Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-11 05:59 +0100
            Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie "David Holden" <SpamBin@apdl.co.uk> - 2011-11-11 07:16 +0000
          Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Steve Drain <steve@kappa.me.uk> - 2011-11-11 10:42 +0000
            Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie "David Holden" <SpamBin@apdl.co.uk> - 2011-11-11 11:27 +0000
    Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Stuart <Spambin@argonet.co.uk> - 2011-11-10 09:55 +0000
      Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Rick Murray <heyrickmail-usenet@yahoo.co.uk> - 2011-11-10 18:57 +0100
        Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie "John Williams (News)" <UCEbin@tiscali.co.uk> - 2011-11-10 19:18 +0100
    Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Ron <beeb@woosh.co.nz> - 2011-11-11 01:11 +1300
      Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Fred Graute <fjgraute@planet.nl> - 2011-11-10 13:22 +0100
        Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Ron <beeb@woosh.co.nz> - 2011-11-11 01:38 +1300
          Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Fred Graute <fjgraute@planet.nl> - 2011-11-10 14:33 +0100
            Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Ron <beeb@woosh.co.nz> - 2011-11-11 12:19 +1300
              Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Fred Graute <fjgraute@planet.nl> - 2011-11-11 00:47 +0100
                Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Ron <beeb@woosh.co.nz> - 2011-11-11 13:06 +1300
        Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Jim Nagel <jimnewsm10d@abbeypress.co.uk> - 2011-11-10 16:22 +0000
        Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Steve Drain <steve@kappa.me.uk> - 2011-11-10 18:28 +0000
          Re: Some observations from a RISC OS newbie Fred Graute <fjgraute@planet.nl> - 2011-11-10 20:59 +0100

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