Re: Low-level vs. High-level programming (was My First Computer)

["Randy McLaughlin" <randy@nospam.com>]

"Kevin Lawton" <kepla@btinternet.com> wrote in message
news:bd2p93$f8r$5@titan.btinternet.com...
> John Moore <butter_pat_head@jcom.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
> | "Kevin Lawton" <kepla@btinternet.com> wrote in message
> | news:bcr0jg$ep0$5@sparta.btinternet.com...
> || Kelly Hall <hall@priest.com> wrote:
> ||| "Matthew Russotto" <russotto@grace.speakeasy.net> wrote in message
> ||| QECdnXzeWrOgUm2jXTWc-w@speakeasy.net">news:QECdnXzeWrOgUm2jXTWc-w@speakeasy.net...
> |
> | <big snip>
> |
> || Basic, which was not created to be used seriously.
> |
> | Whats your reasoning for that?  Just out of curiosity....
>
> Okay, what I really meant was that BASIC was never intended to be used to
> create serious commercial programs. The BASIC language was specifically
> designed for teaching the concepts of creating a computer program to
people
> (often students) who's primary interest was not in computer programming.
For
> example, students on a science, mathematics or engineering degree course
> might be in a position of having to be able to use a computer for
> calculation and tabulation - laboratory results, theories, whatever. BASIC
> takes many of the concepts of Fortran and presents them in a simpler,
> easy-to-use fashion. By making BASIC an interpreted language, the
> trial-and-error learning loop is shortened. The result is language which
is
> very easy to learn and quick to get results in, but lacks the constructs
and
> structure required for writing good quality commercial applications. Hence
> the name:  BASIC = Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code. Bear
in
> mind that at the time, the alternatives mainly avalable were Algol,
Fortran
> and (newly) Cobol. These three are all compiled languages, and the time
> taken to write code on punched cards and then schedule a batch compilation
> run to then get the printed results back a day later would only be
available
> to Computing or Computer Science students.
> In no way was I attempting to suggest that the business of education
people
> via a beginners computer programming language was not serious - education
is
> a very serious topic. No, I was suggesting that BASIC was not suitable for
> creating serious applications in.
> Kevin.

Basic was intended to be a simple language, but intentions of the creator
has nothing to do with it.  Many useful programs were written in more
powerful versions of basic.  I know of programs that are still being sold
that are written in MS DOS's Basic such as Peachtree Accounting.  There were
versions of basic created just for commercial/business environments.
Languages like Visual Basic have extended Basic into the current windows,
but the programs are not very related to the original Basic programs.  Like
Cobol, Basic programs are cheaper to leave in Basic than to re-write in
something else.