6 ms·

Oh hey, this is the first language I ever used, when I was 12! Don't think I'll ever go back to this though. Never could figure out the 3D stuff back then, but

by cordite 11y ago

Oh hey, this is the first language I ever used, when I was 12! Don't think I'll ever go back to this though. Never could figure out the 3D stuff back then, but had fun drawing lines, text, occasional bitmaps and playing sound samples.

mbrock 11y ago
My very first was C64 BASIC, then QBASIC for DOS, which was a really good programming environment for a kid—Dijkstra's warnings about mental mutilation notwithstanding, it was really simple, it came with some games that you could modify, and it had a built-in help manual thing. And plus awesome features like the PLAY function that took a string of notes, which I'm pretty sure helped me even get interested in music, at age 6 or whatever. Me and my brother made all kinds of weird pixel patterns and stuff. One time mom brought home a projector from work, in like 1997, and we made disco lighting by making a full-screen button in Visual Basic that changed colors.
- greydius 11y ago
  QBASIC was my first programming experience. I fondly remember a little known function that would treat a string variable as an array of machine instructions and execute them. There was a nice library of graphics functions designed that way by some clever person which I had found on the late 90's internet. I used that to write a little space invaders clone because the built in functions for copying data between buffers were so abysmally slow (even on my kick-ass state-of-the-art 100Mhz Pentium processor).
- seanwilson 11y ago
  > Dijkstra's warnings about mental mutilation notwithstanding I really dislike that quote: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration". I'm not sure how serious he was being but I cannot see how a potentially good programmer would refuse to learn new concepts like they would need to do when first moving to OO, functional, procedural etc. languages. BASIC is obviously less relevant now but it was nice in that it was easy and quick to get started in whereas more complex languages might scared complete beginners away.
  - schoen 11y ago
    I'm sure it's meant to be humorous, but it could be taken as pretty aggressive humor. I wonder how much is known about early bad habits in any area sticking with us as we learn other things.
  - striking 11y ago
    It's not entirely false. I've seen stubborn students before that refused to do anything new.
    - seanwilson 11y ago
      > It's not entirely false. I've seen stubborn students before that refused to do anything new. How would someone like that ever become a good programmer? Programming involves continual learning and keeping your skillset up-to-date.
      - WoodenChair 11y ago
        There are "good" programmers who still write 6502 assembly. Good is a relative term. They might just be very "good" at what they do.
        seanwilson 11y ago
        It's fair enough specialising in a niche but having the attitude of "I refuse to learn that because it's unfamiliar" isn't going to get anyone anywhere.
  - donatj 11y ago
    I'd place an argument that BASIC still is in many ways one of the best languages for human machine empowerment. I've spent the last 20 years of my life programming, (C, C++, PHP, Java, Go) and I have never felt the overwhelming "I can write anything I want if I try hard enough" I did as a kid writing QBasic on a 286. I wrote literally hundreds of games as a kid with graphics and sound, none of which were over a couple thousand lines of code. The thought of doing any of that in the languages I listed above sounds very complicated at best. I didn't get so lost in the details. We need to take a step back and rethink why we program. For me it is the sheer joy of creation.
- mchahn 11y ago
  My first programming was on punched-card sorters and tabulators that used plug-in boards like the phone operators used. Get off my lawn.

by cordite 11y ago

mbrock 11y ago

My very first was C64 BASIC, then QBASIC for DOS, which was a really good programming environment for a kid—Dijkstra's warnings about mental mutilation notwithstanding, it was really simple, it came with some games that you could modify, and it had a built-in help manual thing. And plus awesome features like the PLAY function that took a string of notes, which I'm pretty sure helped me even get interested in music, at age 6 or whatever. Me and my brother made all kinds of weird pixel patterns and stuff. One time mom brought home a projector from work, in like 1997, and we made disco lighting by making a full-screen button in Visual Basic that changed colors.

greydius 11y ago
QBASIC was my first programming experience. I fondly remember a little known function that would treat a string variable as an array of machine instructions and execute them. There was a nice library of graphics functions designed that way by some clever person which I had found on the late 90's internet. I used that to write a little space invaders clone because the built in functions for copying data between buffers were so abysmally slow (even on my kick-ass state-of-the-art 100Mhz Pentium processor).
seanwilson 11y ago
> Dijkstra's warnings about mental mutilation notwithstanding I really dislike that quote: "It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration". I'm not sure how serious he was being but I cannot see how a potentially good programmer would refuse to learn new concepts like they would need to do when first moving to OO, functional, procedural etc. languages. BASIC is obviously less relevant now but it was nice in that it was easy and quick to get started in whereas more complex languages might scared complete beginners away.
- schoen 11y ago
  I'm sure it's meant to be humorous, but it could be taken as pretty aggressive humor. I wonder how much is known about early bad habits in any area sticking with us as we learn other things.
- striking 11y ago
  It's not entirely false. I've seen stubborn students before that refused to do anything new.
  - seanwilson 11y ago
    > It's not entirely false. I've seen stubborn students before that refused to do anything new. How would someone like that ever become a good programmer? Programming involves continual learning and keeping your skillset up-to-date.
    - WoodenChair 11y ago
      There are "good" programmers who still write 6502 assembly. Good is a relative term. They might just be very "good" at what they do.
      - seanwilson 11y ago
        It's fair enough specialising in a niche but having the attitude of "I refuse to learn that because it's unfamiliar" isn't going to get anyone anywhere.
- donatj 11y ago
  I'd place an argument that BASIC still is in many ways one of the best languages for human machine empowerment. I've spent the last 20 years of my life programming, (C, C++, PHP, Java, Go) and I have never felt the overwhelming "I can write anything I want if I try hard enough" I did as a kid writing QBasic on a 286. I wrote literally hundreds of games as a kid with graphics and sound, none of which were over a couple thousand lines of code. The thought of doing any of that in the languages I listed above sounds very complicated at best. I didn't get so lost in the details. We need to take a step back and rethink why we program. For me it is the sheer joy of creation.
mchahn 11y ago
My first programming was on punched-card sorters and tabulators that used plug-in boards like the phone operators used. Get off my lawn.