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Thursday, September 14, 2006 12:00 AM

Why Johnny can't code

BASIC used to be on every computer a child touched -- but today there's no easy way for kids to get hooked on programming.
By David Brin

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  • Thursday, September 14, 2006 05:08 AM

    Learning BASIC is counterproductive

    The author implies that BASIC is an integral layer that lives between assembly and higher-level languages; in fact it's an evolutionary dead-end. A student learning BASIC would have to learn concepts such as line numbering and GOTO statements which are not only deprecated today, but are "considered harmful" and produce brittle, unwieldy code.

    —ben

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