Path: csiph.com!fu-berlin.de!uni-berlin.de!individual.net!not-for-mail From: dvus Newsgroups: sci.physics Subject: Re: The Case For Quick Basic In The 21st Century. Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2015 10:30:59 -0500 Lines: 84 Message-ID: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: individual.net zHKmp6z7LoaTaK9QlmmJsAAHdroiUxjEn2X7Am2SoGR+kyn3Dm Cancel-Lock: sha1:4EiN1VFKVAT1JtsVd2ziyEPj/Ig= User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.3.0 In-Reply-To: X-Antivirus: avast! (VPS 151115-0, 11/15/2015), Outbound message X-Antivirus-Status: Clean Xref: csiph.com sci.physics:533280 On 11/14/2015 4:28 PM, jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote: > dvus wrote: >> On 11/13/2015 8:27 PM, jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote: >>> dvus wrote: >>>> On 11/13/2015 2:13 PM, jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote: >>>>> dvus wrote: >>>>>> On 11/12/2015 2:10 PM, jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote: >>>>>>> dvus wrote: >>>>>>>> On 11/11/2015 11:22 PM, jimp@specsol.spam.sux.com wrote: >>>>>>>>> Max Keon wrote: >>>>>>>>>> The Case For Quick Basic In The 21st Century. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Prior to the introduction of Windows 7, the files Qbasic.exe and >>>>>>>>>> Qbasic.hlp were included in the self extracting zip file, olddos.exe, >>>>>>>>>> which was available as a free download from Microsoft. It's no longer >>>>>>>>>> available. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> Early in 2013 I asked this question of the Microsoft Community; "How do I >>>>>>>>>> obtain permission to store a copy of Qbasic on my web pages that can be >>>>>>>>>> downloaded by anyone wishing to do so? Permission is all I require." >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I was given verbal permission in a phone conversation with a Microsoft >>>>>>>>>> representative. He said the software was obsolete and of no further use >>>>>>>>>> to Microsoft. I couldn't expect more than a verbal OK in this case. >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> I've stored the necessary info for downloading Qbasic at this address. >>>>>>>>>> http://members.optusnet.com.au/mskeon/qbastest.html >>>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>>> If Qbasic was installed in every computer on earth, it would be one of >>>>>>>>>> the greatest communication tools emerging from the 20th century. There's >>>>>>>>>> nothing else in the world that compares in this field. The problem now is >>>>>>>>>> that XP is the latest Windows version that will properly run the software >>>>>>>>>> and most folk have progressed beyond that. >>>>>>>>> >>>>>>>>> I would guess 99% of people have zero interest in programming Basic >>>>>>>>> to do anything. >>>>>>>> >>>>>>>> I'm finally one of the "1%" I keep hearing about! >>>>>>> >>>>>>> One wonders why anyone in this day and age would be using BASIC for >>>>>>> anything given it's lack of usefull I/O and lack interprocess >>>>>>> communications of any kind. >>>>>> >>>>>> Well, to start with, it's fun. There can be little doubt that other >>>>>> languages are much more useful for practical purposes, but Basic offers >>>>>> a simple introduction to the "basics" of program writing. Serious >>>>>> programmers must, of course, move on to more serious languages. >>>>> >>>>> You do know BASIC is an acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic >>>>> Instruction Code and was invented as a simple language to be used to >>>>> teach beginning programming? >>>> >>>> Yes, that's kinda what I said above. >>>> >>>>> The only reason anyone ever used BASIC for non-educational tasks was >>>>> BASIC was simple and free while FORTRAN compilers were scarce and very >>>>> expensive. >>>> >>>> Yes, again, that's what I said. >>>> >>>>> One of the things BASIC was very usefull for was doing calculations >>>>> that were tedious manually or with a slide rule that today are trivial >>>>> with a $10 calculator, e.g. given X and Y of a vector, calculate the >>>>> magnitude and angle. >>>> >>>> It was also very useful to get kids interested in programming since, as >>>> you pointed out, other forms of programming were harder to implement. >>> >>> I think you missed the part where I said "in this day and age". >> >> What other language would you think suitable to teach to young kids >> these days? They require almost instant gratification to remain >> interested in anything. > > Kids these days are also NOT into command lines, so any language > where it is easy to display a window or a web page, and there are > lots of them. I'm not aware of any that are as easy as Basic to learn and use almost immediately to hold their interest. -- dvus