4 ms·

Going back to a world where free and open software was the norm would be a mistake? Being able to buy one of a half-dozen or more periodicals with informative

Going back to a world where free and open software was the norm would be a mistake? Being able to buy one of a half-dozen or more periodicals with informative commentary on an accessible programming language would be a mistake? Empowering a generation of STEM learners with a basic programming language centered around the bedrock of computer science would be a mistake? Safely and easily gaining first-hand experience with low-level hardware engineering principles would be a mistake? Not PEEKing and POKEing in Primary school is a mistake.

astrodust 8y ago
If you think BASIC was free and open have I got a letter from Bill Gates to show you. GCC is free and open. Clang is free and open. BASIC is commercial, proprietary, closed-source software. The "bedrock of computer science" is machine code, or if you're not a fan of reading and writing hex values or flipping physical switches on your Altair, then assembly. Everything after that is an abstraction.
- abritinthebay 8y ago
  LOL what? BASIC has been around since before Microsoft was even a glint in Gates & Allen’s eyes. Since 1964 to be exact. While many 8-bit versions of BASIC were derived from MS BASIC (1975) it was hardly Microsoft’s baby. Atari BASIC for example has zero to do with MS. Neither does TinyBASIC BASIC itself is absolutely free. Certain implementations are not.
- dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
  There are free and open BASIC interpreters and even compilers.
  - astrodust 8y ago
    There are now, but this was not the case until relatively recently.
- itomato 8y ago
  Gates' copyrights on implementations of BASIC don't interest me. Blackjack, bubble sort and tower of hanoi in human-readable BASIC do. C isn't suitable for most K-8 students. Explain malloc while I handle PRINT, INPUT, PEEK and POKE. We'll meet at memory registers and see whose student feels more confident. You've created a layer cake of abstractions with your OS, advanced filesystem and C compiler (plus libraries). I presume a mouse and metaphorical desktop "icing" are included.
  - astrodust 8y ago
    Your definition of "readable" is obviously a lot different than mine. Consider DONKEY.BAS: https://github.com/coding-horror/donkey.bas/blob/master/donkey.bas https://github.com/coding-horror/donkey.bas/blob/master/donk... Perl is more friendly and forgiving than that.
- M_Bakhtiari 8y ago
  >The "bedrock of computer science" is machine code It hasn't been machine code for at least two, maybe three decades.

astrodust 8y ago

If you think BASIC was free and open have I got a letter from Bill Gates to show you. GCC is free and open. Clang is free and open. BASIC is commercial, proprietary, closed-source software. The "bedrock of computer science" is machine code, or if you're not a fan of reading and writing hex values or flipping physical switches on your Altair, then assembly. Everything after that is an abstraction.

abritinthebay 8y ago
LOL what? BASIC has been around since before Microsoft was even a glint in Gates & Allen’s eyes. Since 1964 to be exact. While many 8-bit versions of BASIC were derived from MS BASIC (1975) it was hardly Microsoft’s baby. Atari BASIC for example has zero to do with MS. Neither does TinyBASIC BASIC itself is absolutely free. Certain implementations are not.
dvfjsdhgfv 8y ago
There are free and open BASIC interpreters and even compilers.
- astrodust 8y ago
  There are now, but this was not the case until relatively recently.
itomato 8y ago
Gates' copyrights on implementations of BASIC don't interest me. Blackjack, bubble sort and tower of hanoi in human-readable BASIC do. C isn't suitable for most K-8 students. Explain malloc while I handle PRINT, INPUT, PEEK and POKE. We'll meet at memory registers and see whose student feels more confident. You've created a layer cake of abstractions with your OS, advanced filesystem and C compiler (plus libraries). I presume a mouse and metaphorical desktop "icing" are included.
- astrodust 8y ago
  Your definition of "readable" is obviously a lot different than mine. Consider DONKEY.BAS: https://github.com/coding-horror/donkey.bas/blob/master/donkey.bas https://github.com/coding-horror/donkey.bas/blob/master/donk... Perl is more friendly and forgiving than that.
M_Bakhtiari 8y ago
>The "bedrock of computer science" is machine code It hasn't been machine code for at least two, maybe three decades.