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I know BASIC is kind of a “bad” language, but there’s something so delightful about it. If we’re plugging TinyBASIC projects that others might find interesting,

I know BASIC is kind of a “bad” language, but there’s something so delightful about it. If we’re plugging TinyBASIC projects that others might find interesting, I made an MMO TinyBASIC REPL the other day: http://10klob.com/ http://10klob.com/

musicale 1y ago
BASIC is an amazing language that computing novices (including humanities majors) could learn in an afternoon, that could be efficiently compiled or compactly interpreted, that was small enough to support dozens of interactive users on a mainframe or minicomputer, or to fit into a tiny 8-bit microcomputer – and yet was largely equivalent to FORTRAN in terms of its expressive power. I think the closest modern equivalents might be Python (for easy onramp and scalability from microcontrollers to supercomputers) and JavaScript (for pure ubiquity in every device with a web browser.) I wonder if there is a modern-ish (?) environment that can match Visual BASIC in terms of easy GUI app programming. Perhaps Python or Tcl with Tk (Qt seems harder) or maybe Delphi, or perhaps a modern Smalltalk.
- andsoitis 1y ago
  Delphi for sure. And while you have to run it on Windows, it can create binaries for Windows, macOS, Linux, and mobile. https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi
  - cestith 1y ago
    FreePascal and Lazarus get you close on other platforms I think. It’s been ages since I’ve looked into it.
    - andsoitis 1y ago
      Yes, but I'd argue the price of Delphi is totally worth the issues you would then avoid by not using Lazarus.
      - TMWNN 1y ago
        I thought Lazarus/FreePascal are 100% compatible with Delphi. Is that not the case?
- pjmlp 1y ago
  Delphi, and naturally Visual Basic for .NET with Windows Forms, not forgeting about C#, however it is getting a bit too much featurities lately, and most likely not what the BASIC target audience would like.
- AstralStorm 1y ago
  Well this afternoon bit... Advanced BASICs are too big for that, and in less advanced ones you get to POKE the hardware to do certain things. Which means you get to learn a bunch of hardware and machine code. That's not all bad though!
pjmlp 1y ago
People too often complain about original BASIC, and forget most dialects moved away from line numbers and spaghetti GOTOs during the 16 bit days, with widepsread of compilers and structured constructs. I am really glad that I only got to learn C, after getting through Turbo Basic, Quick Basic, Turbo Pascal[0], doing exactly the same kind of stuff urban myths say it was only possible after C came to be. [0] - On 16 bit systems, I started coding on an 8bit Timex 2068.

musicale 1y ago

BASIC is an amazing language that computing novices (including humanities majors) could learn in an afternoon, that could be efficiently compiled or compactly interpreted, that was small enough to support dozens of interactive users on a mainframe or minicomputer, or to fit into a tiny 8-bit microcomputer – and yet was largely equivalent to FORTRAN in terms of its expressive power. I think the closest modern equivalents might be Python (for easy onramp and scalability from microcontrollers to supercomputers) and JavaScript (for pure ubiquity in every device with a web browser.) I wonder if there is a modern-ish (?) environment that can match Visual BASIC in terms of easy GUI app programming. Perhaps Python or Tcl with Tk (Qt seems harder) or maybe Delphi, or perhaps a modern Smalltalk.

andsoitis 1y ago
Delphi for sure. And while you have to run it on Windows, it can create binaries for Windows, macOS, Linux, and mobile. https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi
- cestith 1y ago
  FreePascal and Lazarus get you close on other platforms I think. It’s been ages since I’ve looked into it.
  - andsoitis 1y ago
    Yes, but I'd argue the price of Delphi is totally worth the issues you would then avoid by not using Lazarus.
    - TMWNN 1y ago
      I thought Lazarus/FreePascal are 100% compatible with Delphi. Is that not the case?
pjmlp 1y ago
Delphi, and naturally Visual Basic for .NET with Windows Forms, not forgeting about C#, however it is getting a bit too much featurities lately, and most likely not what the BASIC target audience would like.
AstralStorm 1y ago
Well this afternoon bit... Advanced BASICs are too big for that, and in less advanced ones you get to POKE the hardware to do certain things. Which means you get to learn a bunch of hardware and machine code. That's not all bad though!

pjmlp 1y ago

People too often complain about original BASIC, and forget most dialects moved away from line numbers and spaghetti GOTOs during the 16 bit days, with widepsread of compilers and structured constructs. I am really glad that I only got to learn C, after getting through Turbo Basic, Quick Basic, Turbo Pascal[0], doing exactly the same kind of stuff urban myths say it was only possible after C came to be. [0] - On 16 bit systems, I started coding on an 8bit Timex 2068.