Slashdot Mirror
BASIC Computer Language Turns 40
5 REM nam37 codes
10 PRINT "In 1963 two Dartmouth College math professors had a radical"
20 PRINT "idea - create a computer language muscular enough to harness"
30 PRINT "the power of the period's computers, yet simple enough that even"
40 PRINT "the school's janitors could use it."
50 END
10 PRINT "In 1963 two Dartmouth College math professors had a radical"
20 PRINT "idea - create a computer language muscular enough to harness"
30 PRINT "the power of the period's computers, yet simple enough that even"
40 PRINT "the school's janitors could use it."
50 END
10 for x = 1 to 2
20 x = x -1
30 print "ALL YOUR BASIC ARE BELONG TO US"
40 next x
10 POST TROLL 20 IF MSG = GOATSE THEN CLOSE WINDOW 25 SET X = MODPOINTS 30 FOR N = 1 TO X 35 TROLLMOD = TROLLMOD -1 40 NEXT N
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
10 GOTO 20
20 PRINT "Ha"
paintball
I wonder, in some ways, if computing has been harmed by the removal of interpreters. Even when MSDOS came with QBASIC, BASIC programs became very much second class citizens in that environment. The fun and accessability has been removed from programming. Some of it is there in environments like Python under Linux, but even then there's a complexity and obscurity attached. It's not like the VIC 20, with its blinking cursor and "READY." prompt. You have to know the interpreter is there. You have to find it. You then have to go through a range of hurdles to know what it is capable of.
And in some ways, the lack of simplicity of environments like Python is harmful too. Much of the fun of programming was learning how to do amazing things at a relatively low level. Now languages are so complex, and libraries so relied upon, I'd venture to say most programmers do not understand how their programs will run, that something as simple as a change of data structure might make their program run 10,000% faster. Hashing? Sorting? Let the interpreter do it. That stuff's "too hard".
How do you make programming fun as long as we make computers complex? I'm not sure we can. And our computers will become steadily more complex, because increasingly the only people who program will be those with little love of the art. Those who think that a Python library is an adequate substitute for understanding. Just as society has moved to a "condemn, never understand" approach, so has programming moved to a "just get the job done, don't understand the results or the reasons" approach. This is wrong, but it's a vicious circle.
This quagmire of programming become more serious and more unnecessarily complex as the unnecessary complexities drives talented would-be "real" programmers out will not disappear by itself. Resources need to be devoted, and unless people are prepared to actually act, not just talk about it on Slashdot, nothing will ever get done. Apathy is not an option.
You can help by getting off your rear and writing to your congressman or senator. Tell them that programming is important to you. Tell them that you appreciate the work being done by Guido to create a more modern alternative to BASIC that is accessable to even the most Texan village idiot, but that if computers are not made fun again you will be forced to use less and less secure and intelligently designed alternatives. Let them know that SMP may make or break whether you can efficiently deploy OpenBSD on your workstations and servers. Explain the concerns you have about freedom, openness, and choice, and how the lack of a computer that boots into a READY prompt, ready for programming, harms all three. Let them know that this is an issue that effects YOU directly, that YOU vote, and that your vote will be influenced, indeed dependent, on their policies on bringing back home computers.
You CAN make a difference. Don't treat voting as a right, treat it as a duty. Keep informed, keep your political representatives informed on how you feel. And, most importantly of all, vote.
KMSMA (WWBD?)