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At 4 a.m. on May 1, 1964, in the basement of College Hall, Professor John Kemeny and a student programmer simultaneously typed RUN on neighboring terminals. When they both got back correct answers to their simple programs, time-sharing and BASIC were born. Those innovations made computing accessible to all Dartmouth students and faculty, and soon after, to people across the nation and the world.
Dartmouth's BASIC at 50 anniversary celebration was held yesterday, which included the public premier of a documentary on the history and impact of BASIC.
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You will be married within a year.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 01 2014, @06:00AM
Basic was my first programming language and made learning assembly language very easy.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 01 2014, @06:09AM
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Thursday May 01 2014, @07:24AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 01 2014, @07:39AM
As a stepping stone, yes, maybe... but there nowadays there are better alternatives (you can step on the javascript "stone" just as easily. Except javascript allows one to progress beyond beginner concepts).
Otherwise, I find myself agreeing quiteDijkstra [wikiquote.org]:
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
It's not BASIC the first nor the last PL to use them.
(I learnt FORTRAN first, in high-school. However, as it happened, Spectrum Sinclair was the first device I could execute code on. Fortunately, I obtained a PASCAL compiler for it before the brain-rot took hold).
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jheath314 on Thursday May 01 2014, @08:03AM
QBASIC was my first language. While I admit it instilled some bad habits, such as a tendency to think in procedural rather than object-oriented terms (good old GOTO), it was approachable in a way that Pascal and C++ were not. For a little kid, being able to play with code without worrying constantly about arcane syntax rules was essential to getting hooked on programming.
(Score: 1) by BasilBrush on Thursday May 01 2014, @11:50AM
you can step on the javascript "stone" just as easily.
Not really. BASIC back then (I learned around 1981) was very simple. No libraries. You could master the language without the need to understand blocks, structure, objects or libraries. It was a simple progression from writing a series of steps to describe to a colleague how to do a job, or a students description of how to perform an experiment. The idea of maps directly to
1) ... ... ...
2)
3)
4) Proceed from step 2.
Back then the next progression from BASIC was Pascal. Javascript would be closer to a Pascal level. But even then I think Javascript is more complex. Maybe Object Pascal would be more an equivalent to Javascript. So that's a few steps on from BASIC.
Also, BASIC was a good stepping stone to ASM. And Javascript and other more modern structured and object-oriented languages aren't.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 01 2014, @12:06PM
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by BasilBrush on Thursday May 01 2014, @12:49PM
But they are still there. Which means that you have't learned the language unless you learn them. There is a sense of having "Mastered" the language that they wouldn't get with Javascript. Go through the relatively thin classic "Illustrating BASIC" by Donald Alcock and that was it. From no computer knowledge you had mastered a programming language. My BBC Micro came with a manual called "30 Hour BASIC", and that was realistic timing.
Also only learning a subset of Javascript means that you probably can't understand other peoples source, because you don't know all the features they use. Learn BASIC and you can follow any BASIC program.
This really was one of the great things about the 8-Bit home computer with BASIC era. That you had a feeling of something you could master.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 01 2014, @01:22PM
I think you make a confusion between learning to program and mastering a programming language (the later is, at best, a mean for the former). "Mastering BASIC" will only get you to brain-rot in regards with "learning programming". Even more dangerous if "mastering BASIC" comes with a feeling of self-satisfaction and sufficiency.
Remember the '97-'00 (the .com bubble)? Every "programmer" and his dog were paid fortunes only because they could say "they knew how to program in Visual Basic 6.0"; how good was that?
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1) by BasilBrush on Thursday May 01 2014, @02:20PM
I think you make a confusion between learning to program and mastering a programming language (the later is, at best, a mean for the former).
I'm not the slightest bit confused. I said it's just a stepping stone (in the never ending journey of learning to program), but mastering the BASIC language is a good self contained step. One which brings a feeling of having completeness, whether you then go on to study programming further, or take a different path in life.
Remember the '97-'00 (the .com bubble)? Every "programmer" and his dog were paid fortunes only because they could say "they knew how to program in Visual Basic 6.0"; how good was that?
I'm not talking about Visual BASIC. And those "programmers" wouldn't have been any more use if they'd learned a non-object & non-library subset of Javascript instead.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Thursday May 01 2014, @01:00PM
One thing I feel makes a good first stepping stone is learning to write C or C++ for an Arduino. The reference page [arduino.cc] is well designed and the example programs show you how to use the syntax. It's exciting for beginners to see their code effecting something in the real world, rather than just print stuff to the terminal. The Arduino guys have gone to some lengths to hide stuff like pointers and function declarations, so it's easy to get started. For those who are interested, it's not hard to graduate to "real" C or C++ without the Arduino training wheels.
(Score: 1) by BasilBrush on Thursday May 01 2014, @02:24PM
Even better are boards based on the Parallax Propeller. There's a dedicated language called SPIN that's very BASIC like whilst also providing very nice low level bit twiddling opportunities. And at a more advanced level, the best introduction to parallel programming anywhere, with a simple to use 32 bit ASM.
Hurrah! Quoting works now!
(Score: 2) by umafuckitt on Thursday May 01 2014, @02:39PM
Ah, I see, the multiple cores look interesting. Personally I have no desire to learn another language right now, it's good to see they have a C and C++ compiler. Maybe I'll buy one and have a play with it.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday May 01 2014, @02:19PM
Also, BASIC was a good stepping stone to ASM. And Javascript and other more modern structured and object-oriented languages aren't.
Also, afaik there weren't any object oriented languages that would run on a PC back then (PCs were pretty primitive).
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mcgrew on Thursday May 01 2014, @02:14PM
you can step on the javascript "stone" just as easily. Except javascript allows one to progress beyond beginner concepts
What can javascript do that BASIC can't? I've written word processors, graphis programs, and games in BASIC back in the eighties. When the interpreter was too slow I'd simply translate it to assembly; simple because they're so similar. I used javascript in the late '90s and early '0s and found it clumsy and far easier to write buggy code with. I just can't see javascript being a first language.
I disagree with Dijkstra, not just about BASIC but COBOL and FORTRAN as well, though I admit I never used either of the latter much. I have no experience with APL so hold no opinion on that.
Fortunately, I obtained a PASCAL compiler for it before the brain-rot took hold
Yet you still agree that it's brain rotting? Even though it never rotted yours? I've programmed in several languages, beginning with BASIC, and did database programming at work for over a decade in NOMAD (a mainframe program), dBase, FoxPro and Clipper.
Javascript was the last language I did any serious programming in (hated the last 5 years of my career, they switched to MS Access). Now that I'm retired I'm writing novels and short stories instead of code.
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 01 2014, @02:52PM
Got lucky. My first 3 weeks of Pascal resulted in huge main program blocks, with a small number of procedures (if any). Took me half a year to understand the concept of "record" (the Pascal's "struct") - equal-length "parallel" arrays of individual "fields" were coming "natural" to my mind (after FORTRAN's common blocks and BASIC's dims experience).
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Thursday May 01 2014, @06:26PM
I don't know Pascal so don't know if its records and fields are the same as database languages, but they came easy to me, just a different kind of array than BASIC uses.
It is a disgrace that the richest nation in the world has hunger and homelessness.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday May 01 2014, @10:59PM
Pascal record is the equivalent of C struct. Don't have an equiv in Basic, so can't use an array of structs but multiple arrays of individual fields that one uses to "assemble" the structs at runtime.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford