The best thing about line oriented languages like BASIC was that, lacking abstract functions, the language worked exactly like the machine worked. If you wante

The best thing about line oriented languages like BASIC was that, lacking abstract functions, the language worked exactly like the machine worked. If you wanted functions and parameters, you had to implement that much like you'd do if you were writing assembly. Learning BASIC with line numbers and GOTO meant learning how the hardware control-flow worked. This is abstracted away in all languages today.