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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 08:35 AM

    free good stuff

    First, the kid should learn LISP, not BASIC, because LISP is so much cooler. There are a few free LISP interpreters out there, such as XLISP or CLISP. LISP rules! Second, though they don't ship them with every copy of Windows XP, you can download free versions of Visual BASIC and Visual C from Microsoft. Not with a dial-up though; the free VB install file I got is 435 MB! If 435 MB is too porkmatic for you, you can get Turbo C v.2.01 for free off Borland's web site; complete with help files, it's still only 1.1 MB.

    —W. Kiernan

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