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Hello David,
Your essay was great and hit home on many points.
I must admit you are correct about Basic and QBasic. As a kid I got hooked on programming by playing and writing games on an old DEC PDP-8 terminal during high school. It became an obsession for me. Eventually a congregation of kids formed eveyday after school to hang out. All of us eager for time on the terminals to play games and write code. I am a programmer today because of that experience. And quite frankly I just don't see that kind of experience easily avaialble today.
However I did want to say that I did find a website that offers a watered version of Microsofts QBasic. It's pure interpretive and it can't compile, but who cares? It seems to be a great learning tool and its fun to play with.
Check it out at:
http://www.petesqbsite.com/sections/introduction/intro.shtml
To people in the education field and fellow programmers if you feel deeply about this why not send a copy of this article to people you know in the industry?
Regards,
Ted C.
