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As someone who wrote his first program in BASIC, I feel David Brin's pain, but it's more nostalgia than anything else. The fact is, BASIC was a really awful programming language. Today's languages are far, far better, and several of them CAN be simple and easy-to-learn -- at least easy-to-learn to do some very simple stuff you would expect kids learning BASIC in the old days to be doing. Plus they have the added benefit that you're getting your feet wet with something that can be stretched and scaled to something really useful the more you continue to learn about it.
Try Java. Try PHP. Both can be as simple and easy to use as BASIC if you stick to the basic (no pun intended) elements and don't get too fancy.
What is needed is not a return to BASIC, but a kid-oriented stripped down set of instructions for existing code books that, instead of overwhelming the reader with all the possibilities of the code, gets a newbie set up with half a dozen simple programs and instructions for doing some very basic things.
Somebody should write a "PHP for Kids" book. Or if somebody already has, would they please send David a copy?
Steve Bolhafner
