As a software professional (who started with BASIC, since that was mostly all there was, but moved to assembler, Pascal, C, as soon as I could get my hands on them), I agree with other posters here: "BASIC is gone, and good riddance" (geophile).

I also echo the sentiment that Python, Ruby, even PHP and JavaScript are of greater pedagogical value. There is not a high barrier to entry, although it superficially "seems" so, and dwelling on this point indicates the shallowness of Brin's analysis.

I don't think the problem is in access to technology; the problem - again, other posters got here first - is in attitudes to learning "from the ground up". I've found many adult professionals who were simply uninterested in what makes the infrastructure tick - that their lifestyle and jobs depended on. That's fine; it just guarantees an ecological niche for the geeks. I know many of them, and I share many geek traits.

If Brin's son is "tantalised", then suggest he builds a web site (for example). After learning static markup he'll quickly get the hang of PHP.

If he's as "tantalised" as I was, he'll be programming in Xlib or Cocoa or GTK within a year.

Parents - even geek parents like me - should remember that it's quite possible their child isn't one of them, and doesn't need to understand the machine at the machine code level. Maybe they only want to check their mail, reliably and securely message their friends, draw in Photoshop, or edit their band's demo reel in iMovie.

Nobody is surprised when an assembly programmer doesn't want to drop down to soldering TTL circuits. Nobody is surprised when a C programmer balks at writing assembler. Nobody is surprised when a SQL DBA draws the line at writing Perl. The temptation to micromanage the machine is too often exercised in the commercial environments I see. Let kids be exposed to HLLs and VHLLs and good application user interfaces. Let them understand a web site from the "does it afford the user" perspective rather than worrying about counting cycles and microsecond latencies. There is too little attention to human-computer interface and too much "use C dude, Ruby is too slow".

The true impediment to computing civilisation is Microsoft. Step number one, buy your son/daughter an iMac G5 and bring them into the 21st century - or at least show them some of the magnificent alternatives - and you'll give them an intellectual and vocational independence worth having. If nothing else, they'll learn that there's more to computing life than crashes, viruses and cold, dead, closed minds.

To Jim Rootham: The emulator you're looking for is simh (http://simh.trailing-edge.com/).

It was a good article that IMHO is not about Basic, but our kids not learning basic logic skills. I taught my son how to build a PC, how to change oil, tires, alternators, etc on his car. I also taught him how to diagnose some of the most common car problems. Why? Simply, he can't get ripped off by some mechanic trying to sell him something he doesn't need.

Case in point: Microsoft telling the world that if it took out Explorer, Windows would not work. What a gag that was..lol.. Currently, my Windows explorer is so slow that I only use it when a website will not render something using Firefox.

We hear about it all the time, how Americans are falling behind in basic math and science. It's cute to critize and use words like trite, but think past your little world and understand what the article is really about. Learning to use our noodles.

sincerely,

moron

I agree with many of the other letter writers: BASIC is a poor means of introducing children to programming. BASIC is relatively inflexible, encourages a loose, non-functional code structure ("spaghetti code"), and is difficult to debug. More importantly, though, BASIC provides no support for learning fundamental patterns of programming. That is, there are no guidelines built into the language to help beginning programmers understand tradeoffs in structuring their code.

BASIC also tends to encourage a focus on line-by-line semantics rather than more general coding concepts. This is a problem for every beginning programmer, but is particularly problematic for girls. Much of the research devoted to understanding why girls tend not to enter or remain in computer science programs has found that they were turned-off by language-particular tinkering at the expense of a focus on fundamental algorithms. However, this critique is also true of many other suggestions found in these letters (e.g., Perl, PHP). The author seems uninterested in educational programming languages, but some have been quite successful, such as Alice (http://www.alice.org/).

I also agree with other letter writers that it bodes poorly for an article when it begins with such a preposterous opening paragraph -- finding a simple BASIC compiler is trivial.

All the graphing calculators have support for at least basic and there's quite the assembly calculator community online too. I used to program games and math programs on my TI-85 when I was in middle school. I believe TI even ships the USB cable to connect your calculator to your computer with many of its calculators.

With a calculator, a kid can learn programming and learn math- what a thought!

As others have pointed out,

1) basic sucks, and

2) if you really need it, there are plenty of alternatives,

But since there was a very specific request to be able to type in examples from textbooks with as little impedance as necessary, I thought I'd add one useful resource:

http://eder.us/projects/jbasic/

It requires nothing other than a browser, it's operating system independent, doesn't even require Java, just JavaScript, and should work with all of your outdated textbook examples.

http://www.geocities.com/KindlyRat/GWBASIC.html

There you go, now download BASIC to your content.

Personally, I still have copies from MS-DOS days.

David Brin's article "Johnny can't code" can only be seen as reflective of a broader trend in many disciplines to remove the foundation knowledge that the rest sits upon.

Indeed, in Australia there is currently debate about the current practice of pruning away the amount of anatomy a medical student needs to learn before graduating - a concept that may seem to defy belief but is one that is causing real academic revolt.

Robert Heinlein said "Specialisation is for insects" - and indeed maybe we will pay a price for readily obseleting knowledge.

I hate to say it but maybe that dreadful movie from 2000, Space Cowboys, makes an important point!