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Just BASIC 1.0 Beta 2 Released
Xampper writes "Just BASIC beta candidate 2 has just been released, and can be found at the JB website. The programming language is based on the popular Liberty BASIC language, and is a slightly watered down, but free, version. Standalone executables can be made, and the language is easy to grasp, especially for beginners." (Note, this is a Windows-specific language.)
use some subs
10 PRINT "Who gives a fuck?"
20 GOTO 10
or
10 WHILE -1
20 PRINT "Who gives a fuck?"
30 WEND
for you structured people
...there's nothing better than a good combination of the modern programming languages in a single project, let's say...
A technically advanced BASIC console app with an supremely elegant and incredibly fast VisualCOBOL GUI warper attached to it?
READY
>LET PC = 5
READY
>AUTO
10 INPUT "Enter post",P$
20 IF INSTR(P$,"first") THEN 50
30 PC = PC + 1 'Post count
40 GOTO 10
50 IF PC > 1 THEN PRINT "You fail it!":END
60 GOTO 10
READY
>
Basic is a great learning languange. I am glad to see someone create a version that incorporates the simplicity of basic with the power to create usable applications. This is yet another chapter in one of the greatest programming languages.
So, it's not "free" in any meaning of the word, and is actually kinda expensive. But falls into the "if your time has any value" thing really quickly, especially if you want to produce something where performance is no biggie but getting a cross platform application bashed together for low cost is.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
Is this compatible with QBASIC? I have a bunch of programs I wrote back in the day that I'd love to revive.
It's a great way to learn programming for novices.
Seriously. I learned Basic when I was a kid, but if I could be a kid again, I would have learned Python instead (if it had been invented then). the limitations of Basic (no pointers, etc), give it serious problems with anything but low end programs. It certainly has no place in modern commercial development. Visual Basic programmers might disagree, but it's my experience that you're all brutally retarded anyway.
Basic might be good for beginning programmers to get a brief overview of how to code, but before long I would expect them to move onto a better, more capable language before it gives them bad habbits and slows them down. C is a complex language, but Python is exactly right for learners - it's complicated and hugely capable if you want it to be, but is quite capable of small projects and is forgiving for learners.
* Python - A modern, neet-o general purpose language.
* Psyco - Runtime compiler.
* Py2Exe - Converts Python scripts to Windows executables.
* Pythonwin - Windows extensions (and an excellent code editor).
(I want to recommend learning assembler for beginners, since you'll understand exactly what's going on, but almost nobody cares about it these days.. sigh..)
They first teach basic.
Seriously is there any use for this except as a teaching tool ? If thats the only use isn't it an incredibly bad idea ?
There are plenty of great languages that can be learned quickly, teach fundamental computer science painlessly and are free. PERL, PYTHON, LOGO, if you r'e anal all the Pascal variants. These not only serve the purpose of allowing programs to be written but they painlessly impart good technique.
what are theese if not pointer operations?
so just leave it for teaching. It has been said that they shipped BASIC with DOS because that was the only langauge that Bill Gates understood...
There was an unknown error in the submission.
C and/or C++ in high schools *hasn't developed yet*. Right now I'm in high school. Because I listened when they dragged us in and told us about the various courses, I picked up that the Programming class dealt with Pascal. I was able to avoid and continue on my way with C and/or C++ (whatever fits the situation), but my friend got caught. The biggest danger is that someone (like my unsuspecting friend) will actually like PASCAL.
I think that any software development tool that liberates people from being users to active developers is a good thing.
I know that BASIC does not appeal to the Slashdot crowd, but what about those people who have never programmed before? If this program helps a few people write a small program or two on their own, I think it is a great deal.
Personally, I am excited by the Computer Programming for Everybody (CP4E) proposal that Guido van Rossum proposed a while back. I think everybody in the modern, western world could benefit from a rudimentary, working knowledge of computer programming, considering the ubiquity of computers and other programmed devices.
Its UI is nowhere near Visual Studio. You can't even view an entire module's code inside a single window. Maybe its good compared to visual basic 4, but anything beyond that smokes it. I should say that its actually the easiest and maybe best way to develop on a Mac, but for windows it doesn't get any better than .Net. Also beware of its cross platform capabilites. Often you will find yourself needing an extention ( sort of like a dll) and those are written in native code and are not cross platform. But if you aren't doing anything too OS specific, and you need cross platform capability, I would recomend this over Java.
.exe. Of course that makes the executable's size big, but still smaller than a runtime and the executable combined.
Its also sorta cool how it doesn't require any runtime. It just compiles that into the
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
"It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."
/Free
/End-Free
//http://www.code400.com/freeform.php
do;
dsply 'Learn RPGILE, not BASIC';
enddo;
*inlr=*on;
I wouldn't say "watered down" ;)
since it is its own language.
It just so happens you can
compile your Just BASIC
code in Liberty BASIC too!
I can't even begin to name the tons of business applications that have been developed with some dialect of BASIC - from PICK Basic to Business Basic to QuickBasic to VB - there have been many, many successful, fast, and very capable business applications built using this language.
All it is is a syntax: what is the difference if it is "FOR...NEXT" or "for (...){}"? As long as both compile down to native or can be interpreted, why should it matter? Why this "superiority" complex that everyone has over BASIC?
I will tell you this much - which is easier for anyone to read (not just beginners):
or this:
?
Personally, I prefer the first over the second, though I can read and use either - simply because the syntax in BASIC is (usually) clearer. I can also typically hand the code to a beginner (or more importantly, a non-coder) and they can easily figure it out, too - because it is easily readable and understandable (at least to an english-language reading person).
You also can't say that BASIC lacks the power to do anything useful. If you think this, then you obviously missed many excellent demos, games and code examples that were created with QuickBasic, PowerBASIC, and VB during the latter half of the 1990's (and probably even today). I have seen amazing examples of video games, 3D games, 3D engines (google for "3D engine basic" and see what has been and can be done), RPGs, demo effects, etc. I would love to point out the business uses BASIC has been put to, but many of these examples tend to be in-house tools or only sold b2b.
BASIC has its purpose, and I think those who come down on it either have an inferiority complex, or simply don't understand what BASIC is truely capable of in today's modern dialects (GOTO, while still available in almost every incarnation of BASIC, typically is never used in BASIC software development, if the programmer knows what is good for him) - honestly, I think it is more of the latter rather than the former, but the vitriol some people spew makes me wonder...
I also want to reccommend Python as well as a good language, and possibly a good beginner language at that. Why? Because it preserves much of what BASIC had, while adding a lot that BASIC doesn't (although the very modern BASICs go a long way toward addressing these issues). Its syntax feels very much like BASIC, and that is a good thing.
Finally - your word on assembler is dead on. I think assembler should be taught early, so that programmers have some grasp of what actually goes on in a cpu as it executes the instructions (actually, learning how simple CPU hardware works, how an opcode/operand pair, represented by a series of bytes, the bits of which activates various pieces of the CPU, registers, memory, bus, etc - all in time to the all important clock - all of this would be good learning) - after all, at the base level, all a CPU is, is a very fast form of a player piano...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Just basic is just a watered down free as in free beer version of a commercal product as far as I can see.
I found a really free GNU version of Liberty basic through a simple search through google.... just FYI.
I Agree with an earlier post, i learnt Basic as a child and it was fun, but when i look back, i understand that python would have been much better! Python can be used to serious tasks, unlike basic and it is a much cooler language http://www.python.org/ Plus it is free (both meanings of the word), at least since 1.52 (or something).
A little stupidity is as unlikely as a little pregnancy