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I think old style basic is very easy to learn because of goto, you can do a lot of stuff just with goto and if statements. I guess this 'goto is harmful' mantra
by MichaelMoser123 8y ago
I think old style basic is very easy to learn because of goto, you can do a lot of stuff just with goto and if statements. I guess this 'goto is harmful' mantra made it much more difficult to get started with programming as you are now forced to learn more syntax before it is possible to express anything meaningful. The lack of goto has created something of an artificial barrier.
- lou1306 8y ago> you can do a lot of stuff just with goto and if statements You can do all stuff with goto and if, but then again, why should you? Initially it sounds simple, but as the complexity grows it becomes unmaintainable (especially when goto is unstructured, or non-local, such as the "On Error GoTo ..." statement). For some time, I had to fix hundred-line legacy VBA functions and it was hard (i.e. forget trying to do it without a debbugger).
- MichaelMoser123 8y agoI was talking about educational programming: you still have to teach variables, expressions, assignment, a bunch of library functions, etc. etc. The job of teaching is not being made easier if you also have to add a lot of non trivial syntax on top of that.