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Why Can't We Put a BASIC On the Phone?
theodp writes "In the Sixties, we could put a man on the moon. Nowadays, laments jocastette, America's tech giants can't even put a BASIC on the phone. Woz managed to crank out a BASIC interpreter for the 6502 in the '70s. As did Bill Gates and Paul Allen. So, why — at a time when development has never been easier — can't Google, Apple, and Microsoft manage to support a free BASIC or other programming-for-the-masses development environment on desktops, laptops, tablets and phones?"
My limited experience with Android development showed using Java to be obtuse and downright obnoxious to do anything (at least without Eclipse, and even with it doing anything non-standard required digging through horrendous ant buildfiles). And, of course, without a REPL things were even more obnoxious. There is the android-scripting project, but it doesn't provide particularly exhaustive access to the platform.
If you want BASIC for your phone, make one.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
It's easy to throw together a BASIC interpreter. However, in this day and age, why would you want one?
Hobbyist programmers don't write BASIC code these days, the question you should be asking is "why can't we put python/ruby on the phone?".
Filter error: You can type more than that for your comment.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Screw BASIC, someone port Autohotkey to mobile platforms!
Bow before me, for I am root.
But I have gotten the impression Apple keeps iOS locked down and that even with open-source Android carriers try and restrict how you can load apps. A BASIC interpreter would either be powerful enough to work around this restriction (and thus rejected from app stores) or useless enough that no-one would want to use it. Of course, a sandboxed-type BASIC (IE for making local-only games, for instance, and not allowed to use any phone functionality) or something could strike a balance between the two. It's not like the DOS versions of BASIC I used to play around with were very powerful (unless the POKE command counts).
Programming isn't a matter of a few swooshes on a capacitive touchscreen. Also, who could muster enough attention between two instant messages?
We do, it's called JavaScript. With its shortcomings, it's still a better language than BASIC. There are BASIC interpreters written in JavaScript if you really want that.
Obviously if we could do it then, we can do it now.
The big tech companies don't want to.
They don't want regular people writing little programs, they want people buying them. It's a consumption device.
The purpose of these devices is to make people stop thinking of computers as computers, and as mere appliances that do for you only what their manufacturers want them to do.
Liberty in your lifetime
We are starting to see some programming environments where you code on the device itself - one really cool one is Codify for the iPad. They have really thought through how to make entry of code easier using the on-screen keyboard, and you could learn quite a lot of programming concepts developing using this tool.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ever since Smalltalk failed for actually trying to bring programmability to the masses, we have seen progressively less accessible development environments. BASIC was the last gasp in the '80s.
Today development of development environments has itself become a revenue stream, not least for lock-in potential, so we have a million twisty languages, all alike. The last thing anyone wants is a simple, easy-to-use solution.
Microsoft Research wrote an IDE for the Windows 7 Phone, called TouchDevelop. If we really wanted BASIC, we could do that too.
Getting a programming environment is indeed a barrier which I have experienced a number of times. This contrasts with schooldays when I could start writing a basic program simply by switching the computer on. Why don't Apple, Microsoft etc. package the stuff you need to get start programming with their OSes? (So one could begin learning with 5 mouse clicks or less.)
It is available for iOS, at least, as Python Math. It's at least as good a getting-started environment as BASIC was on the old C64, Apple ][, or TRS-80. It seems probable Android has something similar.
The question is "Why haven't *they* put BASIC on the phone?".
The answer, of course, is simple:
1. There isn't much demand for it.
2. It would open up their platform and their cell network to a barrage of crappy software.
It's called the App Game Kit, made by The Game Creators. Has two 'tiers', one that's like BASIC and the other being a group of C++ libraries. Also supports more than just iOS or Android, also has support for Windows, MacOS, MeeGo, and Bada.
The last thing content producers want is to have consumers creating their own content on mobile devices instead of passively viewing their ad-loaded streams.
Today's BASIC is JavaScript. And it's already on all the mobile devices. Even evil control-freak Apple's stuff. Young people already know this and do not need your Commodore/Apple/Atari nostalgia trips.
Also, parachute pants are no longer a thing.
Please update your expectations and wardrobe appropriately.
What do you think the "B" in "VB.net" stands for?
Microsoft Research has a TouchDevelop app for Windows Phone, maybe you can try it
https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/touchdevelop/
...BASIC sucks.
And it doesn't do what you allege it does. There is no such thing as a "programming language for the general public" anymore than there are nuclear power station DIY kits.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Perhaps because any real programmer hates Basic. I would advocate for Forth, an easy to implement interpreter that produces very fast and very compact code, and can cleanly be tied to the hardware (not so easy in Basic unless you like lots of peeks and pokes). But, of course, there will be plenty of anti-Forth heretics that say it is a bad choice, so the complaints will likely go on. However, a quick Google search tells me that there already is an AndroidForth, so if you really want a powerful and useable programming language for Android I suggest finding out if this suits your needs.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
numbnuts.
Java is not terribly hard, and though it doesn't provide DEEP access to the hardware it more than suffices for easy development. The SL4A provides python and other languages, that also work with the abstracted machine.
BUT - how the fuck would BASIC be better than what is currently there? If he has a hardon for BASIC why not just make up a retarded version for SL4A?
Or maybe this was a troll article. Haha /. you got me again...
because it's a fucking phone. should i put BASIC in my car stereo too? how about my toaster oven! i cobbled together an assembler for my clock radio and i'm never lookin' back.
---
Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
I typed in "basic interpreter" into the app store and got several results. What are they talking about?
1. Security of the Device for the Manufacture, Distributor and Provider Liability from Bricking to Exploits.
2. You need 2x+ the storage and memory for the programming information and debugging.
3. Revenue stream for selling the Programming Tools.
4. Most users don't care any ways and just want it to work for them.
Last time I recall MS putting BASIC on a PC was with Windows 3.11 and MS-DOS. It's not a GUI friendly programming language. It's also a terrible language.
I do however wish they would put a programming language on Windows for creating Windows apps (and other platforms). Trouble is MS makes money from selling languages - as do other providers - so there's no real incentive to give something away for free.
As for a simple language which can be used to do basic things - PERL is one solution. Love it or hate it, it's free, it's as easy to learn as BASIC was, and it has real world uses. Not sure about other platforms though
You can't get BASIC for your phone for the same reason you can't get a reasonable BASIC for your average GNU/Linux distro. It's just not that good and it only teaches you bad habits, and in the end - it's just not useful. It's not that good language for the masses as it is advertised, and you can't do much in it.
Why not Python? It's a very easy language in which you can write something significant with the least effort and it has a very steep learning curve. It's easy, it's powerful, and if you ever plan to become a real programmer - it teaches you good programming habits.
That said, I've added CHDK to my Canon camera, and it allows you to extend it with UBASIC scripts. It's one case where a BASIC variant is actually useful, because it's rather easy to implement, and it's used mainly for tasks that are quite suitable for it in their extreme simplicity. Can you give an example - what do you like to script in BASIC on your phone? Maybe you can support BASIC in your app in a way similar to CHDK!
On the iPhone or iPad, there is a BASIC programming environment (sandboxed). It's called BASIC!, and can be found here:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/basic!/id362411238?mt=8
One thing is not liking a language ... for whatever reason, another is not having the skills to work on a pure object oriented language like Java.
The fact that the author is wanting to go back to such a poor, highly limited language as BASIC shows that he does not have what it takes to do real world programing.
If you include the former, see Monkey for a games-oriented language as readable as BASIC but with the most important features of Javascript, C++, etc.
The core language and compiler tools/source code are in the public domain (just download the demo), while the main games toolkit costs money but targets HTML5, Flash, Android, Windows (OpenGL), iOS and XNA (for X360 and Windows Phone 7).
maybe you can try this TouchDevelop app from Microsoft Research
https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/touchdevelop/
I would much rather have pascal in rom than basic, why would I want it on my phone?
10 ? "Get with it man"
20 GOTO 10
RUN
Not free but cheap - GLBasic (google it)
Microsoft Research has TouchDevelop, an educational app that lets people write simple programs right on a WP7 phone. It's sandboxed to limit the potential for malicious use but still fairly capable.
The one thing I fault about it is that it's a new programming language; it would have been nicer if they'd been able to re-use an existing language such as BASIC or even PASCAL.
It's available here. Of course, it's only for Windows Phone, and it's a compiled language instead of an interpreted one. I'm pretty sure that Mono is trying the same thing.
Finding God in a Dog
If the thing ran BASIC or even C, then we wouldn't need quad core 25ghz phones. That would mean current hardware wouldn't suck. That would mean we wouldn't need a new phone the day we bought our current one. It's all about money. Java is a damn mess, so it keeps our 1ghz phones slow enough that we want faster.
I believe these are the droids that you're looking for:
http://www.basic4ppc.com/
Makes developing simple apps very quick and compiles down to bytecode so no interpreter is necessary.
There's also BASIC for Android. I can't imagine that it's that much better than other kinds of Android development (Android development is a bit of a PITA with lots of different aspects), but it's there.
Finding God in a Dog
Give me a couple of weeks. Its no big deal, really.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
— Edsger W. Dijkstra, EWD 498
Basic is a lousy language but... over the years, as a working engineer, I have used BASIC to write lots of quick ugly programs on my graphing calculators. Most of them were ugly, slow, and crude, but it didn't matter because they solved some problem I was working on at the time. If I had basic on my phone, I might use it the same way.
It's because they don't want programming for the masses. Yesterday's leaders wanted to share their tech gifts with the world. Today, they want to provide the best consumer experience, and programming, especially in BASIC, is not a part of that experience.
Rather obviously they can. They just don't want to.
So why don't they want to? There are all sorts of reasons, some more valid than others:
I'm not saying all of these are good arguments. But they're (some of) the reasons why your iPhone has no standard BASIC (or whatever) interpreter. I wish it were otherwise. But if wishes were horses, we'd all be riding LOGO-controlled ponies.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
Sure, I learned BASIC just like millions of others back in the day. But I can't recall the last time I actually did something with it. There are plenty of great programming languages out now that are great introductions to programming that would make more sense to have on a phone. I have my favorite that I do 90% of my coding in, but I won't start a flamewar by naming it or suggesting it to be better than other choices.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Then again, how would I know? They wouldn't exactly advertise it, because the customer isn't going to care. In any case, I don't see how it's relevant. The question is whether a BASIC exists for smart phones. There's at least two.
Finding God in a Dog
The point isn't to great a killer app that sells. The point is that almost every user has the need that isn't met by an existing app.
Sometimes, what the want the phone is out of reach without considerable programming skills.
Most of the time, though, some simple scripts or macros would make the phone do what they want.
I'm not a programmer by trade, but I've taught myself some basic scripting (BASIC, .bat & .cmd) because it makes my primary job easier.
I'm not going to make killer-app.bat that sells tons, but I have a few I've kept for a few years because they suit me perfectly since I could make them to my specs. THAT is what is missing from phones right now.
Grammer Nazis - I mod you "troll" unless you actually add something on-topic. Yes, I know I have mispellings in my sig.
BASIC is the only code that run's on your pc.
n the Sixties, we could put a man on the moon. Nowadays, laments , America's tech giants can't even put a rotary dialer on the phone. Almon Brown Strowger managed to crank out a patent circa 1891.So did many others! So, why — at a time when development has never been easier — can't Google, Apple, and Microsoft manage to use rotary dialers? Or other retard proof dialers for landlines, mobile phones and even VOIP clients!?
What a stupid story. Python is installed with every copy of OS X and Linux, just like BASIC was with the Apple II (well, not quite, it's not in ROM). A cut down version of Python is also available for iOS, or you can have the full thing if you jailbreak or run a remote interpreter on any number of web pages. Speaking as someone who learned to program with BASIC almost three decades ago, Python is a far better language, for learning or anything else.
Who's forgotten to port it?
How the fuck is a person looking for BASIC on phones going to be the one who writes an interpreter?
Stuff your Ayn Randroid bullshit up your fat geek filth ass, you dumb motherfucker.
As much as it pains some of us, the web is the ultimate platform nowadays. There are plenty of web-based interpreters that are usually accessible from modern phones. repl.it has client-side online REPLs for Basic, Python, Scheme, JavaScript and a bunch of others. This post mentions alternatives for other languages, including Dart, Closure and F#.
Basic Nostalgia aside, Java is one of the most brain dead, easy languages to code.
http://www.basic4ppc.com/ comes up with Basic4Android.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
Yeah, but it took Apple long enough to finally acquiesce and approve BASIC. Early versions of C64 emulators that came with licensed games were pulled from the App Store precisely because the user could reboot the emulated C64 and switch from the bundled games to the BASIC REPL.
There is also Basic!, which is free as in a speech about beer.
There was an OnBoard C for the PalmOS -- before Palm decided to screw it up and ended up killing it.
Lua is an embedded language, There could be a mobile Lua.
Javasvript?
Today development of development environments has itself become a revenue stream, not least for lock-in potential
In some cases it is, but in others, please explain the availability of Visual Studio Express. I'm thinking it has something to do with Microsoft not wanting to get people hooked on MinGW, a port of GCC to Windows, only for them to realize that GCC is on the competitors' platforms as well.
In the Sixties, we could put a man on the moon. Nowadays, laments ________________ (grumpy person), America's tech giants can't even ____________________________ (something that's already available, something no one wants, something cranky). Slashdot can write a program to submit these "stories", and we can all log in to write how dumb the idea is, how already done the idea is, etc.
Gently reply
The nice thing about groovy is that it interoperates with java smoothly, since I'm gathering that the native Android APIs are in Java.
However, I think what you really want is a scripting language that's geared for writing miniature touchscreen/phone apps. Which is something that may not exist yet.
I picture things like location and orientation incorporated into the native language, the way threads are in Java. Mind you, I do not have one of these devices, but I like Groovy.
You gotta keep programming, networking, databases etc HARD.
Why? If it got easy, many of you would be out of work.
The alternative to learning BASIC at school has largely become learning how to use the MS Office suite. Way to go badmouthing BASIC guys, at least you guaranteed MS would dominate in schools and offices for a generation.
HTML and Javascript, and for most that'll be enough for smaller tasks. The downside is that there are no access to the local file system.
It would open up their platform and their cell network to a barrage of crappy software.
What cell network? The iPod touch and iPad (with Wi-Fi) don't connect to a cell network. Nor do the Archos 43, Galaxy Player, Chinese 7" tablets, Honeycomb tablets, or Kindle Fire.
It only took a year to find a WP7 USP.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Last time I recall MS putting BASIC on a PC was with Windows 3.11 and MS-DOS. It's not a GUI friendly programming language. It's also a terrible language.
I do however wish they would put a programming language on Windows for creating Windows apps (and other platforms). Trouble is MS makes money from selling languages - as do other providers - so there's no real incentive to give something away for free.
As for a simple language which can be used to do basic things - PERL is one solution. Love it or hate it, it's free, it's as easy to learn as BASIC was, and it has real world uses. Not sure about other platforms though
This. Though I disagree on the 'terrible' bit.
BASIC is a great language to learn in, it's simple and *can* teach some good concepts. But without a decent GUI, most won't be interested. Having BASIC on a phone seems an odd idea; it's not the most ideal platform to type on - or research on. Why the author thinks a phone is a good development platform; I have no idea.
I think it'd be of limited use - but I like the idea of re-introducing BASIC as a good educational tool.
because it's a fucking phone. should i put BASIC in my car stereo too? how about my toaster oven! i cobbled together an assembler for my clock radio and i'm never lookin' back.
You wanted an appliance. You have an appliance.
The single purpose device whose internals are inaccssible to the user.
But don't come back here to complain when every high-tech consumer product is built on the same model. The smartphone. The touch tablet. The set-top box and video game console.
Want Internet radio or video in your car?
Download the app from the walled garden of your Ford app store.
Programming languages are more than just syntax and semantics. Basic is a terrible programming language. Not just for a lack of rigorous language constructs, but for the programming culture that surrounds it. Visual Basic has morphed into something that has little relationship to its ancestors, but still suffers from hokey syntax and inconsistent semantics.
It was the best we had for computers that don't even have the power of a modern microcontroller. But we have better ways of doing things now. Let's leave languages that embody the best we could do with very little, and start people with something that's consistent, useful, and doesn't embed so many dysfunctional programming constructs.
And before you flame me for not knowing basic, I know Basic well. I use it frequently in my work. I still don't recommend it to my clients.
Play it cool, play it cool, 50-50 fire and ice.
I'm not a CS major but on occasion I've need to do some simple projects with a PIC microcontroller. Rather than enroll in a 6 week evening course at the local community college I used PICBasic.
In a few hours my program was up and running and the task was complete. Did I not use the right tool for the right job?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Somebody just SHOOT the OP in the head!!!
This was my first programming language and thank God I never went to VB after that. (my path was Lisp, prolog, c, java, haskell and so on - yes, I did a CS course)
Why the hell would one want this "programming language" on the iPhone? It's like starting a Ferrari with a hand-crank
You don't learn how to program even with VB (this we were told quite emphatically at uni on Programming 101, so to say), let alone BASIC.
We have more than enough "beginner" languages as it is, and BASIC - I think you will all agree - is pretty much the worst there is -sorry, WAS-. There's Python, Ruby, Go and a ton of other newly-minted languages-for-the-masses out there to get you started. But BASIC??? That's 2011 man, not 2001. But if you want something that will run on the iPhone and you want to cleanse yourself for this disgraceful question, go over at PhoneGap and start learning their kit.
It's late in the night on this part of the globe. I really hope I'm having a bad dream and I wake up in the morning and realise that I never actually read this question...
I'm no longer fed up with MS Windows: I go rid of them
For chrissake, /. is not the Wall Street Journal. You can't really believe you can simply coin a new turn of phrase like "a BASIC" and the world will follow...
Since BASIC stands for "beginner's all-purpose symbolic instruction code," it makes no sense to use an article in front of the acronym. It's like saying we need "a C" or "a Perl." It simply makes no sense, and makes you (the lamer who posted this article) look really stupid.
A better question to ask: "Is there a way for users to easily program their own apps for an Android phone?" At least I think that is what you are asking. In that case you might look at App Inventor produced by Google Labs. (http://www.appinventorbeta.com/about/) I have not tried it myself, but I thought the point was to produce a more accessible development environment.
HTML5's offline application cache, local storage and FileSystem portions are meant to handle all of this.
I was under the impression that the offline application cache and local storage were limited to some absurdly small number of megabytes, and file system portion not implemented at all, on a lot of these mobile devices.
Processing (processing.org) is a language that's probably what you want. It uses Java syntax, but with some of the nasty, hard-to-learn bits removed. Can compile into a .jar file or to an an Android app.
Thanks to Alan Kay, Bjarne Stroustrup, and other pioneers we have Android that is built on a completely different paradigm from when BASIC was created. I'm not sure if you still want to PEEK and POKE your way around your system at the low-level, but any type of 'exhaustive' access to the hardware level is now considered to be a HUGE security risk for your application and potential users of your application built using that platform.
and make one yourself (or port one).
But then again, this is a body who can;t handle Java, so the chances of this happening are nil (that that he or she would understand Pascal either).
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I think that there's an app on the market, androidappleemulator, that may allow one to program in applesoft. If that isn't good enough one could allways port the apple//e emulator to droid.
That includes most people currently employed as programmers.
make imaginary.friends COUNT=100 VISIBLE=false
That was the dumbest remark possible - as the other poster indicated - and this anonymous poster we all know he'll stay one. Another "it" masturbating to the sound of it's own voice. Ayn Rand was a sociopath, who profited from the system she detested, and hypocrits one and all.
From Ayn Rand's Wiki page:
Rand advocated reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge and rejected all forms of faith and religion. She supported rational egoism and rejected ethical altruism. In politics, she condemned the initiation of force as immoral and opposed all forms of collectivism and statism, instead supporting laissez-faire capitalism, which she believed was the only social system that protected individual rights. She promoted romantic realism in art. She was sharply critical of most other philosophers and philosophical traditions.
She was a capitalist. The system she detested was communism. Being a capitalist and making a profit is the exact opposite of being hypocritical. The two kinda go hand in hand. Now when a raging liberal makes a nice profit, that's being hypocritical. Learn your definitions first.
You might want to learn a few facts about a person before you go around calling them names like "sociopath". When you are that passionate about something you are so ignorant about it really just makes you out to be a jackass.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
"It is own voice"? What creative use of grammar, sir! "Hypocrits"? A blood test?
BASIC is fine.. But what made BASIC so easy in the 1980's was not the language itself but rather the fact that you didn't need to spend 3 weeks learning how to use the development environment, O/S API's, etc. You could just power on your computer, and start typing.
I've been complaining for years that we need some kind of standardized easy-to-use programing environment that doesn't require the programmer to know anything about the operating system, libraries, compilers, linkers, or any of that garbage. Doesn't matter whether it is BASIC, Python, Pascal, C, whatever...
You can write whatever you want for WIndows CE/Phone7/Phone8 in Visual Basic.net.
This is one of my favorite things about Slashdot, "Why doesn't windows exist? Somebody should make something like windows."
I mean sure it's like 1.5% of phone market share, but that never stopped us from talking about great development tools for Linux.
If you really want it that bad, you can get ZX Spectrum emulators for most phones and off you go.
I suspect that the reason nobody cares for basic is that basic is (and always was) crap. Nobody in their right mind should use it, mostly because you can't do anything with it apart on toy computers of the '80s and for MS toy-programs in the '90s. Forget it. Move on.
On another note, haven't you gone over the top with the choice of words to describe Java and ant? First, on account of not using eclipse, why not use the right tools for the job? It's like complaining that scissors wont push nails in a wall. The whole damn thing was put together that way so that tools can do the work you shouldn't be bothered with.
FWIW: Dijkstra nailed it with "the teaching of BASIC should be rated as a criminal offense: it mutilates the mind beyond recovery." -- Dijkstra
Simple
It's not April yet. Why is this even an article?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
who profited from the system she detested
Even if someone hated capitalism, making money in such a society wouldn't make them a hypocrite. They still hate capitalism. The thing is, they might believe that capitalism is slightly better than the current alternatives (such as wandering off into the woods and living alone forever).
And hypocrisy is not an argument.
For Christ's sake it's the day after Christmas... Don't you have some toys to play with or something?
"A 'person' is smart. 'People' are dumb, panicky animals and you know that."
Capitalist, sociopath, same thing, really.
"Plow my field or you won't get the new iOS upgrade!" - Steve Jobs' ghost
I think with the OP is really asking for is an easy to use development environment although of course he suggested BASIC. While BASIC is really a pretty crappy language it was easy to use on Windows to produce decent applications. Corona SDK isn't quite that easy (yet), but it is vastly easier than Java for sure and also allows you to produce apps which run on Android or iOS. At $199/year for a single target or $349 to make apps for either iOS or Andriod it is very reasonably priced and of course you get free upgrades any time they release them (so long as you keep paying the yearly license). Free to try as well, great product in my opinion (I am not affiliated in any way with Ansca Mobile).
Try ruby for Android https://market.android.com/details?id=org.ruboto.irb&hl=en
http://laughton.com/basic/versions/v01.39/index.html
The entitlement drones expect OTHERS to do the work. Never want to dig in themselves. Atlas Shrugged is becoming reality.
She was a laissez-faire capitalist, but made her money off copyright. That's hypocrisy. Copyright is a state-granted monopoly.
IMHO, Apple (and to a lesser extent, Google) see any easily user-accessible build-and-run-able code as a potential security hole. Doesn't matter if it's compiled binary or interpreted script, in order for it to do anything interesting, it would need hooks into the OS. And, well, that means holes.
If users can copy and paste a script off a website and run it on their phone, they will. And when that script deletes everything on their phone just after sending everyone in the phone's contact list an SMS to go download the script, people will blame the OS vendor. By making it a bit less accessible, they are trying to make it a bit more 'secure' - and while that may work for a while, it's going to frustrate us who just want some BASIC (or Hypercard, or whatever else) to be available on our platform.
Pull up your damn pants your @ss crack is showing and you look like a dork.
PS Get off my lawn!!
BASIC is dangerous and unsafe, and so cannot be made available on a modern system. BTW, knives, guns, hammers, pliers, nail clippers, and more than 3 ounces of any gel or liquid also pose such a threat to national security that we need to give unlimited power to untrained and uncertified TSA "agents".
There is no need for you or the other unwashed masses to have access to something as powerful as BASIC. You aren't qualified for it and programming should best be left in the capable hands of your betters, just like knives, guns, and nail-clippers. We haven't decided yet, but we also believe that you are incapable of regulating your own sugar consumption. As soon as we've decided how much you should be allowed, we'll inform you.
Do you realize how bad BASIC would be on a phone? No objects, so an API for dealing with a DOM would have to represent everything as a string. No callbacks, so dealing with an event-driven environment would not work well. BASIC would have to be extended substantially (essentially up to the VB level) to be usable at all. At that point, you'd have something that does what Javascript does, but lamer.
There is a BASIC for the iPhone. It emulates a green-screen terminal running BASIC. So there.
I think something like AMOS would probably do well on Android/iPhone.
Develop on your home PC and deploy the Basic code through AMOS to you mobile device.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMOS_%28programming_language%29
Of Note in the wiki
The source code to AMOS has since been released under a BSD style license by Clickteam - a company that includes the original programmer.
If you're going for computer archaeology, forget BASIC and let's get back to FORTRAN on Hollerith cards!
Being a liberal I never bothered to read the book, but I have to say the movie really, really sucked! Seriously, we are supposed to feel empathy for people who want to suck their fellow human beings dry?c
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Java is much complained about, on the one hand by people who think it is too hard, and on the other hand by people who think it is not sufficiently expressive. But the evidence is you can build a world-beating OS with a Java userland. And evidently it isn't urgent to augment or replace Java, either with more expressive JVM languages like Scala, or supposedly simpler languages available for the JVM like the BASIC-like Jabaco, even though this could be done for Android since the translation to Dalvik bytecode is downstream of compiling into Java bytecode.
Java has great static code analysis tooling and great refactoring. There are books like Thinking in Java and Effective Java that will make you fluent in the idioms that make Java understandable, debuggable, and maintainable. For a programming beginner I'd suggest Learning Android and Head First Java. Android's documentation, tutorials, and examples are enormously improved since Android first came out.
Every language has screws, but a good case can be made that Java has fewer of them than many other languages.
I wrote parts of this stuff
1) Write a BASIC to C/Objective C/C++ transcompiler
2) Release it
3) ???
4) PROFIT!
Say what?
Is there some fundamental difference between a PC browser's javascript and a phone browser's javascript? Or is there some threshold of code volume beyond which you have to have a connection?
I mean, it was some really simple code, but I have javascript code demonstrating the calculation of pi by hand that runs in an off-line browser. And I have a nice tool for demonstrating rot13 encryption to jr. high kids that runs nicely off-line.
I smell a whole bunch of shills.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Finding the right algorithm is definitely fun. It helps young minds develop and despite the great mass of established art a young mind can find a new path that solves a classical problem exactly because they don't know it's difficult, nor been distracted by the ways others have tried. I've been there on both sides. IBM and Microsoft both lend their engineers to high schools and colleges to gather this IP that the students don't know might be great wealth beyond their imagining - and have since the early '80's at least. There's a lot of dross to wade through, but the effort is worth the gems.
It's also fun to know the lay of the land, to be skilled in the art of Wirth and Turing and Venn and up-to-date with the Journals of the ACM, to stand on the shoulders of giants and lift the bar just a bit higher in one little corner of the field in the hope that one day somebody might deem your work worthy to stand on your shoulder too.
At some point the young minds must transition from the former to the latter, or you're just exploiting them. You owe some of them the bridge. BASIC isn't required (and is, perhaps, prohibitive) for any of this. It's better to teach the machine in the abstract. The effort is probably best moved to elementary schools now. Kids today are pretty far advanced relative to kids from my day. In my day access to actual computers was a special privilege reserved for folks who'd had at least a year's high school instruction. Now kids take to the Internet at 1 or 2 years of age. Finding kids who don't know proving P!=NP is difficult and yet are capable of exploring the question without that bias is going to be a challenge.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
anything more than trivial in basic actually takes a lot of 'programmer thinking' to do.
donkey.bas, (with bill gates programming participation) is a perfect example. its hundreds of lines of spaghetti code that are almost impossible to understand. what does it accomplish ? it has a picture of a car, and pictures of donkeys coming down the screen you are supposed to dodge.
for the 'ordinary person' looking at this program, python would be far, far easier to understand than the mass of PEEK, POKE, hex-code, and other stuff that was in your average IBM PC BASIC program
Seriously.
I suppose you mean that Microsocks' shiny new BASIC is not the old MSBASIC or even VB, but I really smell a paid wave of shills.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
There -is- BASIC of a sort for Android. Just look in the "marketplace" and see: https://market.android.com/details?id=com.rfo.basic The associated comments seem to be mostly positive.
Unfortunately, I've posted.
But this entire article is clearly a ready-made-for-MShills article.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Hmm Radical Breeze's Illumination Software Creator seems to fit the bill pretty good. They even have a couple Hello World examples posted.
The iOS sdk costs $100 for a licence, doesn't it? Its not an arm and a leg, but its certainly not free.
Shill.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
MS has a shiny new VB for phones and wants everyone to say how wonderful it is and how it is again ahead of the wave (when it is in fact behind the wave on every platform but its own)?
That's the point of the story, right?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
So, this poster is mad? Or lying?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
It's not about "BASIC" the language, it's about the IDE. Coding a program in Visual Basic involved dragging controls onto the screen, and then writing the code to tell the computer what to do when that button was pressed. Not having to code the button, then inform the button that it needs to call a certain class.method when pressed, and then create that procedure. The VB IDE allowed you to throw the button on the screen and then make it work. You didn't have to add the button and it's code to a master archive list that tied everything together. It happened in the IDE background without you. You need a tabbed interface, drag a tab container onto the form and add your tabs. No need to add code to the OnCreate() method to look in the resource file to get the list of tabs that need to be added to the tab container. That was handled for you so that you could create the functionality of your program without worrying about the nuts and bolts that held it all together, so that I'm debugging my creation, not trying to track down the tiny misspelling or improper capitalization in all of the necessary config files.
Python is no where near the perfect computer language. The perfect computer language would allow humans to decide what is and what is not correct syntax. I understand what "a + b" and "{a + b}" mean, why can't Python?c
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I would NEVER use that Phillips screwdriver. It sucks and the screw heads always get chewed up. There's so many different sizes and you need al these expensive tools, blah, blah, blah ...
Really people. BASIC is BASIC, C++ is C++, and phones are not Alienware PCs. You use the tool you need to get the job done and sometimes you use the tool at hand because it's what you have. Who cares why someone would want BASIC on their phone? If enough people want it, someone will write it.
Somebody's asking for something (BASIC on a phone) and claiming that the rest of us are feeble for not providing it for him. That's lame. BASIC is so simple that if he were not so feeble he could provide it for himself and give it to us instead of complaining we didn't give it to him. While I don't dig the Randian philosophy, "Atlas shrugged" is a resonant tie for the liberal arts folks among us to engage the question. The GP ought not be modded down as it's an actual complaint about an extant social issue, topical and insightful.
It's OK to make fun of him for demanding something so simple. It's not OK to be so hateful about it.
Your post, it's got control issues. You seem conflicted. You should consult a professional to help you accept your maternal issues and latent homosexuality before sublimating your natural inclinations becomes a social violence issue. A stitch in time saves nine. I can offer a referral, or you can Google it. Please - get help.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
confiscating wealth to support the willfully lazy, that's sucking a fellow human being dry.
You got that one posted pretty high in the article, before anyone could point out the basic false assumptions in the story. It even looks natural.
Maybe you'll get a bonus ten-spot for that.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
That's why he's rich and I'm poor. I bought into his line of junk back then, thinking it would do what he said it would.
I don't want to talk about it, and I suppose I'll have to forgive him someday, but he has built up a lot of bad karma to match his fortune.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Not that I've used B4A or any of the others, but they are available.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Why can't we have BASIC on our phones? All I need is 5 lines of code to explain this:
5 LET S$=0000000000
10 DIAL S$
20 PLAY REFINANCE_SALES_PITCH.MP3
30 S$ = S$ + 1
40 GOTO 10
Can you imagine what the world would be like if people could do this? There would be computers calling all the time. You'd hang up on them but they wouldn't care, because they'd just move on to the next number, and some other computer would call you a few minutes later, also not caring that you hung up on them. The phone companies would grow fat off the revenues from all these calls, which would be paid for by the 1% of morons who actually bought something from our purely-hypothetical (fingerquote) ROBO DIALER (fingerquote).
A world like that would be totally insane. This is why we don't allow junk mail in the postal service. Can you imagine? Or self-aggrandizing sociopaths in Congress. We'd be in serious trouble... thank goodness we don't live in that world.
She detested religion, and yet she created a cult with herself at it's center. Oh, sure it's not your typical cult, but it was pretty clearly a cult.
People who haven't ever messed around at some level tend to not understand why there has to be any rules, and, yeah, all the rules seem arbitrary.
And why wouldn't they seem what they are? It's just that when you've never dug into formal languages, arbitrariness is not seen as useful.
Erg, new and confusing to the bulk of users, and no clear reason why one set of arbitrariness is better than another until they get in a ways.
And the ones who've done some mucking around with code, well, the rules they are used to are the ones they find familiar and simple.
The thing with BASIC is that it was/is designed as a calculator language, so that's what it works with most seamlessly -- simple calculator problems.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Things I don't want to do in BASIC:
-- and for very good reason --
parse a web page for more than one or two items of interest;
write a note tracker that will eventually be integrated into a document system;
write the back-end functions of a genetic analysis system;
build a time tracking system that I plan to ask people besides myself to use;
calculate pi beyond about the thirtieth place; ...
Basically, any problem beyond the easy answers. You know, I'm talking about the easy answers that, at one time were hard to get to, but now are not, and are known to be very limited in their context of application.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Various forms of BASIC are, indeed, already available for Android.
Not so much for iOS, except for those who are registered developers, as I understand, but reading the posts to this point, there may even be ways around Apple on that.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
The carriers put some pressure on Apple to avoid letting users abuse the wireless network with automation.
At least, that was the excuse.
Not sure how Android is avoiding that.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Processing.org is a favorite learning tool for a lot of educators wanting to get a painless "basic" introduction to proper programming. It also lets you make quick and dirty android apps without having to configure eclipse and setup a bunch of toolchain components.
To get started with Processing you just download the all-in-one free package from processing.org and launch the app and you have an IDE with a blank sheet waiting for you to put in code and several dozen practical examples ready to run. Just press play and watch.
All the fiddly bits are taken care of for you - you just have to write two pieces of code that represents what you want to happen when the program starts, and then what happens "per draw" - i.e. every time the screen is re-painted. The language is a "simplified" java - same syntax, curly brackets and all, but intentionally limited in scope to mainly focus on achieving graphics rendered in a single "window" and putting in namespace shortcuts so you don't need to remember which library contains basic text and math functions.
You don't need to use objects - the whole app "wrapper" hides that for you, but you can use objects and most Java goodies if you want. With simple tricks you can access most of the userland Android functions such as accelerometers, GPS, buttons, sound and cameras functions. It's slightly more tricky to get "permissions" for your Processing app to do things like make phone calls and that's probably for the best.
I think it's generally a fairly good "basic" programming environment for novices or those who for whatever reason can't or don't want to just spend the not excessive effort required to learn proper java and Android programming and get the much richer eclipse IDE setup.
However, Processing's IDE is almost as awful and primitive as BASIC interpreters for 1980s micros so if you're just nostalgic for unhelpful ?SYNTAX ERROR school of debugging you should feel right at home.
You do understand that the whole hypothesis is just false?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
If I want a calculator on a phone, I'll take bc or dc.
Or lisp, or forth, or ruby, or, ....
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
That's the whole point of the flame wars over BASIC.
Friends don't let friends right large, complicated, or otherwise serious applications in BASIC. (Yeah, I'm talking about the range of about 50,000+ lines of code, which is about where you start bumping into the 5M barrier for data and code.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I mean, really?
BASIC
Logo (for iPhone)
Python
No perl, unfortunately. But there's probably more available as well.
She profited heavily from a planned/regulated economy, which is what she was fighting against. She and her supporters wouldn't last 10 minutes in an actual capitalist country for the same reason anarchists rarely would survive in actual anarchies.. she depended on the regulation, planning, and protection of her host country while imagining that if those same rules only applied to other people how much better off the elite would be.
I don't - and haven't ever - worked for any of Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Nokia, Google, Dell, HP, ASUS, Acer, Nokia, HTC, LG, Lenovo, nor contractors thereto, nor any of their direct competitors - nor ever held any of their securities to date, nor expect to. I'm a small business kind of guy. My opinions here on /. are my own, and are of no relation (and quite dissonant to) my employer's position. I post here only on my own time and give only what I've got of my own opinion. My account predates my present job, and they're quite tolerant of free speech where I work so they'd be fine with me putting my opinion on their time and dime but I still don't do it because I don't want the suspicion of taint. If you're wondering about some other company then please do reply with the name so I can deny it, because it's unlikely you'll guess who I work for - it's a really small company and way off the radar.
I work in IT of course, so sometimes when some of the above companies have the best answer for the customer I recommend them - but in that case I'm working for the customer, not the vendor - and I have no preference for a vendor. The best fit, the latest reliable tech is what I recommend. I recommend many millions of dollars worth of gear a year and the best recommend for a particular customer is a complex metric best not aired here. You were better off trying to educate me than just calling me a shill.
I'm not in marketing, and I'm not some geek in his mom's basement either. I'm a systems architect in servers, storage and networking. If you'd been paying attention to /. these last eight years you'd know better than call me a shill. Your account is too old to be part of the bangalore astroturf crew, so I'm guessing you're a Microsoft new hire with an old /. account yearning to prove your worth. Try again with somebody else, but don't fight with me here unless you want to lose because I don't put stuff here I can't back up. This is /., and the standards are strict.
I'll close with this recent link, where Nokia and Microsoft astroturfers were calling shill on other blog posters: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2011/dec/19/nokia-microsoft-lumia-comments
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Someone who gets it. Entitlement culture today is that no one wants to do work, and complains everyone else won't work for them. These are the very looters in Atlas Shrugged.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j3A5DzJepA
Talk about not following your own conversation, and not knowing the facts you are trying to invoke ...
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
It's on the Playbook, and will be on the BB10 phones.
http://peterhansen.ca/blog/category/PlayBook.html
-- I care not for your foolish signatures.
This was the whole purpose of this story, right? To let MS pretend it's at the front of the pack again?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Microsoft Research has a nice little app called TouchDevelop that lets you program simple scripts on a Windows Phone device. It even has access to certain files like the music library. You can build all sorts of tiny apps, games and utilities right on the phone with it.
You dad, I learned how by watching you. Parents who use GOTO have kids who use GOTO. Just say no to spaghetti code. GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
We've found BASIC for Android and iOS, it does not require the dev system, and I think someone already noticed that the dev system for WP7 isn't really free as in beer, either.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
That quite is especially weird - Included with every mac (I think. I installed Xcode before checking):
gcc (man page suggests it can compile c, c++, objective c, fortran 90, fortran 95, ada, assembler and java source), perl, python, ruby, shell (bash and csh, I think), all available from the terminal app. You can edit the source files with vim (included, and which has its own scripting language - ed), but a beginner would probably just use textedit.
It also includes a graphical language (automator) that isn't that functional (can be looped, but has no branching, and a limited selection of hooks into other apps. But you can make applescript/perl/shell nodes), and of course applescript (available from the terminal if you want to, but the applescript editor is more useful and better documented.
Next, you can get Xcode for no extra fee with Lion, (and you can't get a new Mac without getting Lion), and that includes the iOS development tools.
I'm sure I've missed a bunch of stuff, and I deliberately didn't mention all the unix core utils stuff that can be used instead of scripting for certain types of tasks. Apple machines (other than iOS) actually come with some pretty powerful tools right out of the box.
A beginner would need to obtain some documentation for many of those tools (perldoc is pretty bare by default for instance), but the tools themselves are all there. I'm not sure why Apple got lumped in with Microsoft in the quote you found.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
On Android: search for BASIC in market.
On iPhone: you can't because you don't want TO.
There is an MS-DOS emulator for Android. Search for DosBox in the Market. It'll let you run old DOS programs (like Doom, and Duke Dukem), and I assume you could run GW Basic or Turbo Pascal. Some people have even been able to run Windows 3.11 under the DOS emulator.
She detested religion, and yet she created a cult with herself at it's center. Oh, sure it's not your typical cult, but it was pretty clearly a cult.
Define cult, describe how Objectivism fit that definition, illustrate how Ayn Rand intended it to be that way, and then tell me how that contradicts her criticisms of religion.
Your criticism is extremely vague. "She opposed BroadConceptX (undefined). She created BroadConceptY (undefined), which is different from but similar to BroadConceptX. Therefore, she is a hypocrite."
Your definition of a cult must be extremely broad to include Ayn Rand's followers in it. Or perhaps your definition of cult is simply: Anything you disagree with strongly, but has passionate believers in. Where are the mind-control, dependence and isolation, community preventing members leaving (these are individualists, for crying out loud) etc? It does not even offer an institution, much less a controlling one. Its just her books.
I just checked the Android Market and found at least one version of a BASIC app which I could download and use on my phone right now.
Doesn't Slashdot do any simple research to verify the stories before puting them up?
In the Android Market there are (at least) these versions of BASIC:
Mintoris Basic
BASIC! + SQL
There are also a smattering of other interpreter and compilers also.
Basic research is basic.
People who use the derogatory term "willfully lazy" lack empathy and cannot be bothered to examine what makes people unemployed. "Fellow human beings" that exploit workers and profit form misery are not fellows, they are leeches.
That's like saying "hey, wouldn't it be great if our phones had a really easy to use virus delivery system?"
I have no idea who john galt is but i know it pisses off libruls when i ask them. yee haw
Doesn't your phone have a web browser? I'm sure someone must have implemented a BASIC-like environment in javascript. Okay, I guess that wouldn't work in Opera Mini (poor javascript support), but should work in Opera Mobile or Safari or Android's default web browser. Okay, no access to phone resources from inside the browser, but if all you want is IF and PRINT - or graphics - then you could certainly do that in a browser. And at a lot faster speeds than your 6502 ever achieved.
Don't know about other phones, but quick search in the Android market shows a few basic interpreters, some of them free. So instead of asking slashdot, why don't you just download them?
You guys have no idea what you're talking about. Get Basic4Android, it's similar to visual basic 6, and debugs like visual studio. I've already got an app on the market called LG Esteem Optimizer using this tool.
Coming up with the clever algorithm to solve a problem is what is fun
Some important distinctions to make are between coding, design, and production, all of which are parts of the experience. Maybe the point of graphical programming environments isn't only to cater to the pure programming experience you're talking about, but also to give people the opportunity to experience the fun of designing, and seeing their ideas come to life.
As a kid learning BASIC on TRS-80, I did not care in the least about coming up with a clever algorithm. Deciding what to make, creating it and seeing it work was the fun part. For some people, the clever algorithm may indeed be the only fun part of programming, but for me (even now, as an adult and a professional programmer) there is a lot of satisfaction to be had in the design and production parts of the job. Coming up with clever algorithms and solutions definitely is fun, but so are the other parts.
You're essentially arguing that the process itself is all that is, or should matter to people, but I think that misses an important part of any creative enterprise.
Also, as a kid, that sense of "wow, I just made this computer do something it didn't before!" was a pretty rewarding feeling. I think new programmers probably still get some of that.
YAWN!!!
I guess you're all too young to remember Python for S60 running on Nokia phones YEARS ago....
Once again, Nokia -- remember them? Still the World's largest, most innovative mobile phone maker....they guys that Apple and Google copied....
Widgets are usually written in Python or JavaScript or some other sort of scripting language. And many of them are written by hobbyists and 15 year olds. What are you missing?
Check out NS Basic. They have been making great BASIC development environments for mobile devices since 1993. The latest version is called App Studio. It creates apps for iOS, Android, BlackBerry and more.
You develop on the desktop. It converts your code (which is very VB like) to JavaScript, HTML and CSS and creates an app which can run standalone on the device. You can distribute your app directly from your website or use PhoneGap to submit it to an App Store.
It comes with a nice drag and drop IDE, with many of the same controls VB desktop apps have. It's easy to start using. Since it is layered on top of HTML5 and JavaScript, it inherits all their goodness and is actually quite powerful: you use SQLite as a database, can access the web, accelerometer, GPS, etc. Support is excellent and there is a really helpful community.
Have a look at all the customer comments - people really love this product.
most people miss that point of basic.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
One of the problems with sarcasm is that sometimes it is too subtle.
And one of the problems with whack-a-mole shill hunting is that it's sometimes hard to tell where to wield the hammer.
One thing's sure, this article was definitely fertile ground for shills.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I've been using the Scripting Layer for Android to code a small python app. It uses the voice recognition and speech synthesizer to do do things like read the weather for me, and connect via socket to my home computer where I have a server running to execute some commands like playing music and such.
It work great! The entire python standard library is included and some things like Twister works as well.
The Android API is not entirely fully fledged, but I've been able to access all functions I want (sensors, speech, build menus among other things). If you need full control and access to all API-functions though, java is the only way to go.
I could't imagine why you would want to use BASIC instead of Python. If for some reason you dislike Python, you've got Ruby, Perl, Shell and more.
I believe she lived off benefits for a time. That's the hypocrisy.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
The original BASIC is unsuitable to programming phones or doing anything of interest on modern machines, simply because it can't handle modern APIs and OOP. If you're talking about a modern BASIC like VisualBasic, that really is pretty much the same as programming in JavaScript and Python.
So, if you want to do easy development for you phone, use JavaScript. You can write cross-platform apps in it, and you get a choice of running it in the browser or making it a phone app.
there were some great programming tools for the Atari and Amiga which allowed people to write some great applications and build up their skills.. blizzard basic, and the like.
anyone remember arexx, which was a powerful tool?
How about Lua on android and iOS?
it seems this particular wheel keeps getting reinvented.
With sarcasm you leave some clue that the stated is intended humor, though it might only be understood such later. This is difficult to do online when you don't have vocal cues to work from. Sometimes it can be worked out from absurd pretext. To do it in a single printed word is high art. You didn't do that. I do admire the audacity of the attempt though. It's a trick I've only achieved twice.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
My limited experience with Android development showed using Java to be obtuse and downright obnoxious to do anything (at least without Eclipse, and even with it doing anything non-standard required digging through horrendous ant buildfiles).
Yeah, I find walking to be a bit limiting too (at least after I cut off my feet and blindfold myself).
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"
- Charles Darwin
BTW: that's twice out of hundreds of attempts. I'm not trying to pretend I'm good at it.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
...for FORTRAN.
Whitespace by itself could be tolerable, or even a positive attribute sometimes.
Having two different whitespace characters is Hell.
There's absolutely no need to have a character that was intended to program mechanically a typewriter to write tables.
The tab character not only creates an unneeded extra whitespace character, it also has two different interpretations. In mechanical typewriters and in many alphanumeric terminals it was programmable, the user could set which columns would be tab stops. In many recent environments it represents only a fixed number of spaces.
In you old VT100 terminal, as in mechanical typewriters, pressing TAB could jump your cursor straight to column 27 then to column 39, or whatever set of columns you choose. In your modern editor all you can do is to program how many columns each tab press will jump.
TAB sucks. Allowing TAB characters in Python code is enough to make whitespace formatting suck as well.
Thank you,
The given information is very effective.
I’ll keep updated with it.
Royal Orient
Thank you,
The given information is very effective.
I'll keep update with the same.
ufo
Is there some fundamental difference between a PC browser's javascript and a phone browser's javascript?
No, but there is a fundamental difference between a PC browser's DOM and a phone browser's DOM. Phone browsers are less likely to implement certain HTML5 APIs. For example, Apple claims that Safari for iOS doesn't even support <input type="file">, let alone the File API.
Or is there some threshold of code volume beyond which you have to have a connection?
Yes. Phone browsers are likely to impose smaller quotas on the application cache and local storage, as I mentioned in another comment.
Whoever said that Python is the best tool for every problem?
Guido van Rossum. Next question, please?
I used to be a big Python fan, but Python 3 cured me of this disease. Python 3 was a big blunder from some theorists who never actually had to develop a complex software system. The most dangerous fuck-up was changing the way division works.
It used to be that (3 / 2) in Python returned 1, now it returns 1.5. That's a big no-no to everyone who works with professional software. If you work with toy systems like class assignments that will be run once and then forgotten, it's no problem changing the way an operator works. If your software does something important, you cannot accept a change that means you have to go through every line of code with a fine-toothed comb looking for every division and verifying if it will be affected or not by the new rules. Remember, Python has dynamically typed variables.
Yes, I know, there's a PEP somewhere that said to use // whenever you wanted an integer result from a division. This means that when you learn Python the first thing you must do is to read a collection of several hundreds of PEPs before you write your first line of code. Is that a great introductory programming language?
I think Python 3 was a blunder of first magnitude. A computer language should be about easing the use of the computer, not creating needless tasks. As a matter of fact, every single change introduced by Python 3 makes the language harder to use. Compare the old formatting operator with the new format method, for instance. How much more typing you need just on the off-chance that someday somewhere someone will want to use both position and name to locate the arguments.
Python now has walked very far from the "batteries included" principle. If I have to learn a programming language just to need to learn a new programming language when I start using a computer, what use is it? Better to start learning C instead.
The first computer language I learned was Fortran, I know people who never learned another language because Fortran was all an engineer used to need. Pascal was also used as an introductory language in the 1970s and 1980s, and I think it's much better than Python in that respect. Knowing Pascal you can jump effortlessly to C.
I have used Python a lot for what it does best, which is prototyping scientific calculations using NumPy and SciPy. It's much better than Matlab for this because it has a better syntax. Unfortunately, since I run the risk of getting new bugs from Python 3 or other future versions, now I feel I must convert all those programs I wrote in Python to C. My approach used to be that if a program is not used often enough for the lack of speed to bother me I left it in Python, alas, no more.
Laissez-faire capitalism is the reason why the US economy is in the toilet now, socialism (in the form of bi-partisan bailouts) saved it from being flushed. And yes I'm sure there are plenty of opposite examples since AFAIK, reality is still steadfastly refusing to conform to any particular political philosophy.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
What "planned/regulated economy"? Your trying to say the early-mid twentieth century US had a planned economy??? She did benefit from the rule of law which has the proper purpose of preventing one person from abusing the rights and property of another through force. You seem to saying she was an anarchist who thought there should be no law or government. That is not the case.
Citation please? She did not. However, if you look a little deeper into her writings you will find that she fully supported participating in the system to get back some of what had been taken from you. She considered it stupid to not setback what benefit you could.
Unfortunately, government programs to redistribute wealth fail to make any distinction between the willfully lazy and someone who's misfortune is due to some other circumstance. She didn't support exploitation of anyone. She supported the willing and free exchange of value/labor in which each person rationally decided what exchanges were in their best interests, free of outside force and coercion. That hardly sounds like someone advocating exploitation.
Addi with Addi -plot is a Matlab clone build on the Octave project. Seems to work nicely. Pretty close to BASIC
In addition to the above points, let's mention a few other things:
She opposed Medicare, Social Security, and all other forms of welfare, but not so much that she wouldn't draw upon them herself later. Apparently, you're not a looter if you were forced to pay into the system in the first place. And if you're not someone else, I guess.
She opposed the draft, but called draft dodgers bums. Apparently, beliefs are fine so long as you don't stand for them. (See last point.)
She wrote a philosophy opposed at its core to taxation as the the seizure of private property by government force, but supported the US government taking away land from Native Americans by force rather than allow them to continue living like savages, since they did not have a concept of property in the sense she did. She also claimed to oppose racism in all its forms, but reviled Native Americans and actually had the gall to call them racists for thinking that they were entitled to the land they were born on, and vociferously supported the "civilizing" influence of white men. (Essentially, if you didn't believe in her system, you had no rights. Period.)
Now when a raging liberal makes a nice profit, that's being hypocritical. Learn your definitions first.
Profit and liberalism aren't opposed. Perhaps you should learn your definitions, instead of just stereotyping everyone who disagrees with you as the worst, straw-man exaggeration of the beliefs furthest from you.
Then again, if you're a big fan of Ayn Rand, I think you've probably had some really terrible influence in that matter considering how she became increasingly incapable of portraying anyone not in step with her own beat as anything other than a mustache-twirling, evil for evil's sake villain. I swear that woman became utterly incapable of seeing other points of view as human by the end of her life.
The person lamenting the loss of BASIC also had difficulty with Java and Android app development? You. don't. say.
Yup, I'd point towards both App Inventor and Simple (http://code.google.com/p/simple/) as answers to the submitter's request, at least for Android users.
I am not talking about someone who is incapacitated, nor someone who finds themselves thrown out of a job. I'm talking about the willfully lazy who refuse to work because the state pays them to be so, and I have plenty more derogatory terms for such parasites. Most workers in first world countries are not exploited, but most of those who have never worked are the willfully lazy.
The scripting framework for Android is unstable and not very usable. The last release was in August. I don't think there has been a single application written in those languages. Jython and JRuby are extremely slow on Android. The Scheme interpreters I have seen are toys. So, I don't know of a usable, practical language other than Java for programming Android apps.
If you can point me to a usable Ruby, Perl, Lua, Python, or Scheme implementation for Android that is good enough to write real applications in, please do.
I don't understand why you want something so out of time, prone to errors and lame as Basic on your phone. Excuse me if I offend you but if your skills are so week to deal with Java (and Java it's no complicated as C++ or other languajes) then you shouln't develop. Are you a man or a clown?
Well, almost, it depends on what the OP wants, if its actually to sit and noodle in Basic on an Android device, well, can't help you there.
But if its developing something quickly and easily on the PC in a language which is pretty much like basic, then you can, you can buy the inexpensive "Basic4android"
It has its own designer, which looks much like the visual basic one: You chose what element you want to add, say a button, you drag it on the screen until it has the right size, enter new text in it etc.
You program in a basic like language, with auto complete and runtime debugger. When you develop you can either run it in the Google Android emulator on the PC, or test it right on your connected device.
Your code is converted from this basic code to Java source, which is then compiled to native bytecode with Googles standard tools. Its a signed apk you could sell on the Google Market and the apk runs on Android 1.6 and up to 4 - on phone or tablet (Of course if you have need some of the new Android core functions in say 3.0, that will limit compatibility, but that is your choice)
Compile time libraries support most of what you need in a simple fashion (and new libraries are coming all the time, and if you had the skills you could write your own), but you can already access things like Admob, Multitouch, GPS, Bluetooth, SMS, Camera, Webservices, XML,JSON, SQL, POP3, TCP, FTP, Text to speech, OpenGl etc - (that's not an exhaustive list, just some things I remember)
So you can write something big or complicated, or just whip up something very specific in a few moments, then it it looks like something like this:
Or
Here is their example of how to make Hello World in Android (in 2 minutes) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4wh0IksOfg
Or read more here http://www.basic4android.com/
No, I don't work for them, don't know them personally, and don't get a cut of anything - Just a satisfied customer :)
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Commodore 64 on the iPhone/iPad has had BASIC for some time...
"There are people who do not love their fellow human being, and I _hate_ people like that!" - Tom Lehrer
Why would you want BASIC anyway, it is such an antiquated language, you should be asking for Ruby instead, as NOONE does BASIC as a new shop anymore.
Only 'flamers' flame!
I oppose Medicare, Social Security and all other forms of welfare, but I'll be damned if I won't accept it. I lose upwards of 40% of everything I earn to these crap handout programs, so when my time comes to get some back I will.
I oppose a draft as well (I prefer the volunteer system and I did volunteer and did a full tour in the Army), but if it was the law and people dodge it I'd call them bums as well, no different than I call undocumented workers criminals. If you don't like the law, change it, but be prepared to be called a criminal or bum if you break it.
She's right on taxation, it is government imposed thievery with the intent of social engineering and vote buying. Go to a national consumption tax (exempt food and medicine) only and every pays their fair share because if you can afford it you can pay tax on it.
And I'm sick to death of this Native American bullcrap. If you are born in this country you are native. Indian tribes have no more claim to being more native than anyone else. Archaeological evidence (that is regularly attacked by the tribes) shows their ancestors arrived when there were others already here, so they did to the previous waves what Europeans did to them. That's f**king life.
I've never considered myself a big fan of Rand, but I don't disagree with what she said and kudos to anyone who can make a profit in their life's endeavors.
Why Can't We Put a BASIC On the Phone?
10 PRINT "Because your phone was not designed to be a useful tool...it is a media purchasing device."
20 GOTO 10
RUN
Because your phone was not designed to be a useful tool...it is a media purchasing device. ...
Because your phone was not designed to be a useful tool...it is a media purchasing device.
Because your phone was not designed to be a useful tool...it is a media purchasing device.
Because your phone was not designed to be a useful tool...it is a media purchasing device.
Because your phone was not designed to be a useful tool...it is a media purchasing device.
i see the original post more about the state of the modern programming than basic on the phone. now one cannot wipe butt without an enterprise crap load solution. simplicity and efficiency of old school (turn on the computer and start developing) is unknown to programming kids these days. they cannot print hello world without decoupling it first and then writing 1000 lines spring xml.
It was for the Intel 8080.
Android has the Android Scripting Layer. It's not BASIC, but it has several easy to learn languages available.
Forth would be a much better choice than Basic. Smaller, faster and much more flexible but still something anyone can learn. Best of all, if you don't like the language, change it.
SPICE was originally written in Fortran, if I remember correctly. In '94, I ran across a public tarfile with the Fortran source, and tweaked "f2c" output which I was able to compile on HP-UX PA-RISC. I also wrote an X-Windows frontend with Motif. It could pipe the "dot-matrix" output into the xmgr graphics package. I think that I still have the source code somewhere. Mail me if you want it. http://rhadmin.org/
We now no longer need to read the comments to get obvious flamebait, let's just post it as stories... Slashdot just got more efficient.
I think the point is that for more and more people, the phone and tablet are the only day-to-day computing devices, and that as time goes on this situation will continue to grow especially in the 2nd and 3rd world countries.
The idea that hobby development should be done on these devices, rather than end on these devices, seems to be to be an interesting one. BASIC probably isnt the best choice, but not because any of the other text-based choices are any better. I could see a programming language and IDE based upon positioning icons and tying them together to be something worth considering.
"His name was James Damore."
erk
Microsoft did the world a lot of damage with their versions of BASIC. You have to allow for a bit of residual acrimony.
(MetrowareMicroware's basic09 was kind of fun, way back when.)
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Or am I forgetting what the strikeout tag was?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
http://www.monkeycoder.co.nz/
While Java is a high-level platform independent language, the coding enviornment has degraded back to the stone age.
From early days on the Model 33 Teletype coding FOCAL into a PDP-8 or ALGOL on the Burroughs B-5000 to Assembler on 808x/Z80/6502 platforms everything was one line at a time. Then, the world evolved to environments like Smalltalk or the wonderful Interlisp-D on Xerox' D machines. The super friendly and efficient coding environments died soon after. Microsoft's Visual series of environments for the C family of languages is also great.
Enter java. No pretty environment for such a nice language. We're back to command line coding. No more reverse execution, DWIM, Edit on Break and continue functions. We're back to the stone age. Sun and the Java Community missed the boat by developing a wonderful language with a coding environment that basically sucks the big time. We have de-evolved the coding world with Java. We're back to a Model 33 mentality for coding.
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
All of us old farts did your mom in the basement computer lab behind the VAX 11/750 on top of the HP1000. Or was it the Honeywell Bull? Whatever, she was a freak.
10 MD
Let's see, Insightful, Troll, Flamebait, Insightful. I was going for Funny, personally.
objectivism is a cult in that it's members cling to each other's repeated lies to validate their position that boils down into selfishness, pure and simple. It is a cult in that SHE is the center - the self-appointed lightning rod - of an entire group of people who hold a religious belief (i.e not founded on a rational argument) that it's okay to screw people, so long as it fits a personal notion of "progress", bill of rights, et. al. included.
So there.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
objectivism is a cult in that it's members cling to each other's repeated lies to validate their position that boils down into selfishness, pure and simple. It is a cult in that SHE is the center - the self-appointed lightning rod - of an entire group of people who hold a religious belief (i.e not founded on a rational argument) that it's okay to screw people, so long as it fits a personal notion of "progress", whether for or against the bill of rights, the constitution, or any other moral limitation. In other words, a dangerously immoral people looking to a single person as justification; a cult.
So there.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
taxation is in no way government theft. Ghandi wrote that if you oppose a thing, do not participate. Have fun with your privatized fire departments. Oh wait, fire depts are run by volunteers. I guess volunteering is against your damned political agenda, too. It all boils down into misguided selfishness - you have no idea what it takes to make you stay alive. And that's why america is great; you don't have to. lucky for you.
CS majors know the time/space tradeoff, but they never get taught the 3rd, crucial, tradeoff of the set: comprehension!
you can develop on symbian using qt, python and ruby.
Compared to the economy of where I live the US economy is definitely in the toilet and it has nothing to do with mythical BMW give-aways.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
RealBasic is truly OOP. It compiles executable for Win, Mac, Linux, and Web. It can be extended via it's API Plug-in system.
If you are trading in NSE, BSE, MCX and in NCDEX then let sharegyan give you all stock trading gyan
There is a project that provides scripting language capabilities for Android.
This means Python, Lua, Ruby, Perl and more ...
See sl4a for more details.
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