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Re: Why I preffer Basic!!!

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On Sat, 07 Dec 2013 20:52:48 -0500, Auric__ <not.my.real@email.address>  
wrote:
> Rod Pemberton wrote:
>

> C is a good general-purpose language, but there are lots of languages
> which are mored suitable to specific tasks. What language you use
> depends a lot on what you're trying to accomplish.

I don't believe in that concept.  I've never needed a domain specific
language to do what I need or want to in C.  My experiences prove to
me that most other languages are far less functional than C, except
PL/1 which is just as powerful, and perhaps C++ which encompasses C.

>>> I have programmed in Basic, C,C++, Pascal, java and perl. But I have
>>> done a idea in C, but it don't work as I want. But in Basic it will
>>> work out much esier, so I will do some C programs but more in Basic.
>>
>> About the only thing really convenient in BASIC are MID$, LEFT$, RIGHT$,
>> and string concatenation '+'.
>
> How about the fact that in most BASICs, you don't need to worry
> about the length of a string? That's worth a lot to me.

I don't worry about the length of a string in C.  I hardly ever use
strlen().  If you're not copying a string, concatenating a string,
storing a string from runtime input, or formatting a string in memory,
then you generally don't need to worry.  Even in those instances,
with care, you can allocate the exact amount for the string or
pre-allocate more space than is needed for a string if doing some
manipulations.  I said "generally".  If you're doing other string
manipulations, you can run into problems, but it's usually just a
matter of pre-allocating enough extra space to fix the issue.

>> It's done slightly differently in C, but C is far more powerful
>> and flexible.  The big problem with BASIC is unstructured code.
>> You can jump into and out of loops, etc.
>
> Modern BASICs tend to be just as powerful and flexible as C,

Interesting.

I reviewed one of the early BASICs I used a few years ago.  I had
planned on implementing a new version on the assumption it would
be easy to implement.  However, in general, I felt the language
didn't scale well to modern machines.  Many of the features of
the language seemed designed for memory and size constrained
architectures.  The only useful concepts I thought it still
had as compared to C was the string functions which are simpler
than C and most other languages.  I'm not saying it's a useless
language.  I saw it work very well in a factory setting.

> and unstructured code is a problem with the *programmer*,
> not the language.
>

I would agree that it's a problem with the programmer, but
I disagree that it's not a problem with the language too. I've
seen other programmers firsthand who can't follow structured
coding concepts in BASIC.  That's why it was known for
"spaghetti code".  C has a few non-structured elements for
programmatic code generation, but it's mostly structured.  Even
so, I've seen C programmers intentionally go out of their way
to use and even abuse the few non-structured elements in C.
They always have some rationalization as to why they shouldn't
use structured coding: speed, no support for nested returns,
error handling, etc.  Of course, none of that is true.


Rod Pemberton

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Why I preffer Basic!!! MIkael Ljungberg <mljmacqb@gmail.com> - 2013-12-07 08:59 -0800
  Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! Herbert Kleebauer <klee@unibwm.de> - 2013-12-07 19:21 +0100
    Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! Paul Bartlett <bartlett@panix.com> - 2013-12-07 16:54 -0500
      Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! "Auric__" <not.my.real@email.address> - 2013-12-07 22:41 +0000
      Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! Herbert Kleebauer <klee@unibwm.de> - 2013-12-08 01:17 +0100
    Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnohavenotit.cnm> - 2013-12-07 19:55 -0500
      Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! Herbert Kleebauer <klee@unibwm.de> - 2013-12-08 02:16 +0100
  Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnohavenotit.cnm> - 2013-12-07 19:58 -0500
    Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! "Alexei A. Frounze" <alexfrunews@gmail.com> - 2013-12-07 17:01 -0800
      Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnohavenotit.cnm> - 2013-12-08 00:26 -0500
    Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! "Auric__" <not.my.real@email.address> - 2013-12-08 01:52 +0000
      Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! "Rod Pemberton" <dont_use_email@xnohavenotit.cnm> - 2013-12-08 00:19 -0500
  Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! Harry Potter <rose.joseph12@yahoo.com> - 2013-12-10 09:20 -0800
    Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! Paul Bartlett <bartlett@panix.com> - 2013-12-10 14:23 -0500
      Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! Harry Potter <rose.joseph12@yahoo.com> - 2013-12-10 11:27 -0800
  Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! MIkael Ljungberg <mljmacqb@gmail.com> - 2013-12-10 11:39 -0800
    Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! "Alexei A. Frounze" <alexfrunews@gmail.com> - 2013-12-11 02:44 -0800
  Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! MIkael Ljungberg <mljmacqb@gmail.com> - 2013-12-11 03:10 -0800
    Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! "Alexei A. Frounze" <alexfrunews@gmail.com> - 2013-12-11 03:44 -0800
      Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! Harry Potter <rose.joseph12@yahoo.com> - 2013-12-11 07:41 -0800
  Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! MIkael Ljungberg <mljmacqb@gmail.com> - 2013-12-31 23:42 -0800
    Re: Why I preffer Basic!!! Paul Bartlett <bartlett@panix.com> - 2014-01-01 14:10 -0500

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