4 ms·

My first computer was a shoulder-busting Compaq Deskpro Portable running Windows 3.1 (64KB RAM, 40MB hard drive, 5.25" floppy drive). I cut my teeth on GW-BASIC

My first computer was a shoulder-busting Compaq Deskpro Portable running Windows 3.1 (64KB RAM, 40MB hard drive, 5.25" floppy drive). I cut my teeth on GW-BASIC after a family friend gave me a programming book. What I loved about it - and miss in today's crop of programming languages - was the extremely low barrier to entry. Creating interactive programs with graphics and sounds was dead-easy. The syntax was extremely simple, and it didn't require yards of boilerplate, importing libraries, switching among DSLs, or learning difficult paradigms to write a working program. It was at least partially my early and quick success at making the computer do stuff that inspired me eventually to jump to other languages with more complex paradigms and tooling. (Obligatory Dijkstra quote notwithstanding.)

chaostheory 14y ago
Isn't Ruby and Python just as easy for simple programs? I don't remember Basic or even Pascal being great aside from being easy to learn and very simple.
- RyanMcGreal 14y ago
  Python is my day-to-day programming language and I love writing in it, but out of the box there's no comparison to: 10 CLS 20 SCREEN 8 30 LOCATE 10,34 40 COLOR 2,3 50 PRINT "Ryan McGreal" 60 LOCATE 11,35 70 COLOR 1,3 80 PRINT "is Awesome" With Python, you would need to download and install something like PyGame, which means learning how to install and import modules, the basics of OOP, interacting with an API, and so on.
  - bradleyland 14y ago
    This isn't a longing for BASIC, it's a longing for a time when the entire display could be addressed using simple x,y coordinates. Maybe more accurately, it's a longing for BASIC as a metaphor; longing for the simplicity of the past. Personally, I wouldn't trade today's computing environment for the environment we had in the days of BASIC, even at the expense of a higher barrier of entry.
    - alan_cx 14y ago
      "it's a longing for BASIC as a metaphor; longing for the simplicity of the past." Totally spot on. And I feel the same way, but, its never coming back. It was a golden age for us at the time. Heh, its was our version of the 60's !!!!!!!!
    - RyanMcGreal 14y ago
      I don't miss BASIC as a simple production language, I miss it as a simple first language. (Sorry if I didn't make that clear in my earlier post.) We often create sandboxes with most of the complexity abstracted away for people to get their first introduction to a complex system, and BASIC filled this role nicely 30 years ago. I'm not saying we need to bring BASIC back, but rather that we need a first language that is as simple to learn and use as BASIC was. After all, the metaphor of putting things into a rectangle using x and y coordinates is no different from the way we position elements on a web page today.
      - joezydeco 14y ago
        And I'm saying bring it back. Perhaps we just need to admit that BASIC is perfect for this task instead of inventing a whole new language. Are we as a group ashamed to admit that this language, clumsy at it was, was a perfectly usable gateway to bigger things?
        RyanMcGreal 14y ago
        BASIC has some deeply aggravating misfeatures and missing features that would be easy to fix without significantly expanding the scope of the language, e.g. better data types like native lists and dicts, and easier support for functions and procedure calls (fixed IIRC in QBASIC).
        joezydeco 14y ago
        Do we really need lists, dicts, and funcs to let a 10 year-old kid do this? 50 PRINT "Ryan McGreal" 80 PRINT "is Awesome"
  - chaostheory 14y ago
    As petercooper has already mentioned there at things like Scratch and something why released for Ruby (Hackety Hack?) that are just as simple yet better. I still have no nostalgia for basic whatsoever.
  - zachrose 14y ago
    Processing (processing.org) is pretty close.
tomjen3 14y ago
Honestly today all you have to do is press CTRL + SHIFT + I and then start typing code into the debugger. You can then write code anywhere you want -- and you can play with more advanced tricks than you could on the old computers.

chaostheory 14y ago

Isn't Ruby and Python just as easy for simple programs? I don't remember Basic or even Pascal being great aside from being easy to learn and very simple.

RyanMcGreal 14y ago
Python is my day-to-day programming language and I love writing in it, but out of the box there's no comparison to: 10 CLS 20 SCREEN 8 30 LOCATE 10,34 40 COLOR 2,3 50 PRINT "Ryan McGreal" 60 LOCATE 11,35 70 COLOR 1,3 80 PRINT "is Awesome" With Python, you would need to download and install something like PyGame, which means learning how to install and import modules, the basics of OOP, interacting with an API, and so on.
- bradleyland 14y ago
  This isn't a longing for BASIC, it's a longing for a time when the entire display could be addressed using simple x,y coordinates. Maybe more accurately, it's a longing for BASIC as a metaphor; longing for the simplicity of the past. Personally, I wouldn't trade today's computing environment for the environment we had in the days of BASIC, even at the expense of a higher barrier of entry.
  - alan_cx 14y ago
    "it's a longing for BASIC as a metaphor; longing for the simplicity of the past." Totally spot on. And I feel the same way, but, its never coming back. It was a golden age for us at the time. Heh, its was our version of the 60's !!!!!!!!
  - RyanMcGreal 14y ago
    I don't miss BASIC as a simple production language, I miss it as a simple first language. (Sorry if I didn't make that clear in my earlier post.) We often create sandboxes with most of the complexity abstracted away for people to get their first introduction to a complex system, and BASIC filled this role nicely 30 years ago. I'm not saying we need to bring BASIC back, but rather that we need a first language that is as simple to learn and use as BASIC was. After all, the metaphor of putting things into a rectangle using x and y coordinates is no different from the way we position elements on a web page today.
    - joezydeco 14y ago
      And I'm saying bring it back. Perhaps we just need to admit that BASIC is perfect for this task instead of inventing a whole new language. Are we as a group ashamed to admit that this language, clumsy at it was, was a perfectly usable gateway to bigger things?
      - RyanMcGreal 14y ago
        BASIC has some deeply aggravating misfeatures and missing features that would be easy to fix without significantly expanding the scope of the language, e.g. better data types like native lists and dicts, and easier support for functions and procedure calls (fixed IIRC in QBASIC).
        joezydeco 14y ago
        Do we really need lists, dicts, and funcs to let a 10 year-old kid do this? 50 PRINT "Ryan McGreal" 80 PRINT "is Awesome"
- chaostheory 14y ago
  As petercooper has already mentioned there at things like Scratch and something why released for Ruby (Hackety Hack?) that are just as simple yet better. I still have no nostalgia for basic whatsoever.
- zachrose 14y ago
  Processing (processing.org) is pretty close.

tomjen3 14y ago

Honestly today all you have to do is press CTRL + SHIFT + I and then start typing code into the debugger. You can then write code anywhere you want -- and you can play with more advanced tricks than you could on the old computers.