When I was 9 years old in 1996, my dad got me TrueBASIC. It was one of my first programming languages. And it was cool to be able to create programs that draw g

When I was 9 years old in 1996, my dad got me TrueBASIC. It was one of my first programming languages. And it was cool to be able to create programs that draw graphics and output executables. Something I hadn't done before. The manual was good enough to get started. I made some games over the next few years before I moved on to RealBASIC (now Xojo). Perhaps if there had been some kind of online community I would've taken it much further. At the time, I was not aware of QBasic or any of the other common similar BASICs. What I can tell you looking back is that it was a fine way to get started. We can debate whether it would still make sense to use something like this over Python for a modern 9-year-old. Certainly it's much more limited. But I will say there are just a lot fewer foot guns for a complete beginner. There's less surface area, so there is less to learn, but also less to do. I don't think that's such a bad tradeoff actually. Sometimes limitations actually spark imagination. And it's motivating to be able to learn all of something. But there are certainly free/open source BASICs that are just as good today. It's a legacy product.