[yiransheng]

Trying to compile Basic is actually a bit trickier than just implementing an interpreter indeed. Like the FOR statement example you mentioned. Another messy situation is non-lexical FOR/NEXT like here [1], where NEXT can be encountered before a FOR statement, fairly certain I did not get it entirely right there.

Original Dartmouth BASIC had only 14 statement types, and it takes very little efforts to enumerate and implement all of them, even if you are just starting on a compiler journey and making things up suboptimally along the way.

The bonus upside for choosing BASIC as your first compiler project is that you get decades of vintage test programs to play with like this one [2].

[1] https://github.com/yiransheng/basic_rs/blob/ddd64e2eacfc2b36...

[2] Game of Life compiled to warm: http://subdued-afternoon.surge.sh/