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by rbanffy 41 days ago
> Basic is just not particular useful and has a lot of funny behavior or missing parts for any serious project.

I think it is an interesting teaching tool. It has a lot of limitations that place it close to the machine level - all variables being global, no real named functions, and so on. It grounds the expectations about what a computer can and can't do - all the fancy things we do are smoke and mirrors layered on top of a very simple machine.
1 comments
canpan 41 days ago
It is true, I did learn Basic (QBasic) first, as elementary school student, and C second. What made it particular good was the F1 help. I think it is still one of the best help systems I ever used. Good intro and F1 while pointing on any function and instant help, easy to understand. Additionally no complicated include and compiling. But at the same time, I think I could also teach simple C or JS to an elementary school student. It is just the help and runtime that is bad. Somehow still today there is no major language system that does all of this well. Curious...
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hnlmorg 41 days ago
I’ve taught Python to primary school kids (which I think is the same age group as elementary school).
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rbanffy 41 days ago
QBasic is already a couple levels of abstraction above GWBasic and other 8-bit ROM-based BASIC interpreters (BBC excepted).
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