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Why Can't We Put a BASIC On the Phone?

Posted by Unknown on from the that's-make-it-too-easy dept.

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.

7 of 783 comments (clear)

  1. Codify for iPad by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  2. It Is Available by Paul+Slocum · · Score: 4, Informative

    I typed in "basic interpreter" into the app store and got several results. What are they talking about?

  3. Indeed, Microsoft has done exactly this by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 4, Informative

    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
  4. For that matter by MAXOMENOS · · Score: 5, Informative

    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
  5. Five seconds of googling later by SleepyHappyDoc · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://www.basic4ppc.com/ comes up with Basic4Android.

    --
    Stasis is death. Embrace change.
  6. Free Basic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    There is also Basic!, which is free as in a speech about beer.

  7. Re:Why BASIC? What for? by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 5, Informative

    WP7 has TouchDevelop.

    Android has several BASIC interpreters, JS, Lua , Ruby, and a couple of custom-designed languages in the Market.

    You were saying?