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• Thursday, September 14, 2006 01:03 AM

  Simple interface programming languages DO exist

  David,

  I understand where you're coming from, but I disagree pretty strongly that the interfaces of perl, or shell, or python, or ... fill in the blank with your favorite scripting language - somehow don't give you the simplistic, do-it-yourself interface that BASIC did.

  I, like a lot of my generation, grew up on the Pets, the TRS-80's, the Vic-20's, and the C-64's. I first learned assembler on a Commodore 64 when I was 12 or so, and I agree that it was much easier for me to get to that point because I was able to experiment with the BASIC language. But then, unlike a lot of my peers, I took a 10 year hiatus from programming, and didn't get really back into it until grad school. Learning C was a huge pain in the butt for me, C++ even more so, to the point that I gave up on programming altogether and focused more on the application integration side of things & experimented with security subsystems that were more fun (and simple) to play with.

  For me, BASIC was the thing that allowed a 12-year old kid to program a computer. It was wonderfully liberating.

  But I disagree pretty stringently that the same, simplistic interface isn't available on any modern computer. Throw in a knoppix CDROM (no installation required), and an 8-year old boy can figure out how to make just about any computer become a linux workstation that features a native interface that includes one of the most simplistic programming languages I'm aware of - the bourne shell.

  The 8-year old boy of my example throws in a knoppix CDROM to his parent's computer (or starts up his $100, MIT-provided, laptop if he happens to live in the thirld world), clicks on a terminal icon, and starts typing:

  VAR="Hello World!"

  echo $VAR

  And see's his computer screen show:

  Hello World!

  How different is that from a bit of basic code? How hard is it to use "printf" to move a dot across the screen? And even perl (or perlsh, for the adventurous) offers a fairly simple interface.

  I really don't understand why you're fixating on the need for BASIC when very many common, simple program languages are just a few feet away from you in the form of knoppix CD.

  Mark

  —dorsai Read dorsai's other letters
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