Yes, at least at scale, BASIC is hard! It's a wolf in disguise due to all the "easy" English words, words that of course need to be put in the correct, often g

Yes, at least at scale, BASIC is hard! It's a wolf in disguise due to all the "easy" English words, words that of course need to be put in the correct, often grammar-violating order so that nothing is won anyway, for the compiler to make sense of the instructions and intent. You end up getting a language design that places more importance on a bastardized form of English like a text-based adventure game, rather than being a good map to the problem space that doesn't get in the way like a bumbling fool.