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I remember when I was a small child being introduced to BASIC for the first time on what I think was an IBM 286 machine. At the time, I had no concept of thing

I remember when I was a small child being introduced to BASIC for the first time on what I think was an IBM 286 machine. At the time, I had no concept of things like "functions" or "subroutines" and was writing a BASIC program where I needed to re-use the same dozen lines of code to transform a value. I attempted to "kludge" together a block of code that you would GOTO, but I couldn't figure out how to automatically return to the next label of code, e.g.: CLS 10 X = 32 20 RETNUMBER = 40 30 GOTO MYFUNCTION 40 REM CONTINUE HERE <snip> 70 ARG = 64 80 RETNUMBER = 100 90 GOTO MYFUNCTION 100 REM CONTINUE HERE <snip> MYFUNCTION: REM DO STUFF WITH ARG GOTO RETNUMBER Of course, I hit an immediate syntax error - not being allowed to pass a variable to the GOTO keyword. As I recall I ended up implementing a bunch of IF-ELSEIF statements like this: IF RETNUMBER = 40 THEN GOTO 40 ELSEIF RETNUMBER = 100 THEN GOTO 100 The sheer explorative value of a quick interpretive language like BASIC cannot be understated.

guenthert 2y ago
> The sheer explorative value of a quick interpretive language like BASIC cannot be understated. I think that's the first time I've seen 'quick' and BASIC in the same sentence. Gosh, yes, I, like many of my generation, started out with BASIC. No reason to impose that on the next. We don't teach slide rulers in school either anymore. Something interactive, fairly save and not too mind wrecking would be nice. I'm no educator, but my best guess would be something like Racket.
- vunderba 2y ago
  I don't think anyone is imposing anything - if a child is having fun, there's no need to force them into any specific language or framework. I was referring more to "quick" in the sense of quick to get started, no installation, since it was "bundled" with the vast majority of systems. And since a lot of computer is booted directly to some version of basic in the ROM, it was pretty frictionless. Heh I don't think slide rules are a very relevant comparison - since you don't really build things with slide rules. A better analogy would be building with Legos versus building with Minecraft. It comes down to what you want to teach as an educator, most kids are obviously going to be happier with something that's visual and interactive, whereas the teacher wants to emphasize concepts like logic and flow control. A happy medium might be something like scratch.

guenthert 2y ago

> The sheer explorative value of a quick interpretive language like BASIC cannot be understated. I think that's the first time I've seen 'quick' and BASIC in the same sentence. Gosh, yes, I, like many of my generation, started out with BASIC. No reason to impose that on the next. We don't teach slide rulers in school either anymore. Something interactive, fairly save and not too mind wrecking would be nice. I'm no educator, but my best guess would be something like Racket.

vunderba 2y ago
I don't think anyone is imposing anything - if a child is having fun, there's no need to force them into any specific language or framework. I was referring more to "quick" in the sense of quick to get started, no installation, since it was "bundled" with the vast majority of systems. And since a lot of computer is booted directly to some version of basic in the ROM, it was pretty frictionless. Heh I don't think slide rules are a very relevant comparison - since you don't really build things with slide rules. A better analogy would be building with Legos versus building with Minecraft. It comes down to what you want to teach as an educator, most kids are obviously going to be happier with something that's visual and interactive, whereas the teacher wants to emphasize concepts like logic and flow control. A happy medium might be something like scratch.