From: davidc@wa-wd.com   
      
   On Mon, 18 Nov 2024 21:35:07 -0000 (UTC),   
   INVALID_SEE_SIG@example.com.invalid (J.D. Baldwin) wrote:   
      
   >   
   >In the previous article, Louis Epstein   wrote:   
   >> Having basically only worked in BASIC despite a collegiate exposure   
   >> to Fortran 77,what do you see as the advantages of these other   
   >> languages?   
   >   
   >It must be said that BASIC evolved over the years and Visual Basic in   
   >2010 did not especially resembled Dartmouth BASIC in 1983.  That said:   
   >   
   >#1 by far:  The modularity is built in.  "Subroutines" in (regular,   
   >original) BASIC are a kludgy hack at best.   
   >   
   >Also on the list would be variable scoping, which concept kind of   
   >includes passing by reference vs. passing by value when calling   
   >functions.  Everything in BASIC was "global" -- and I am not of the   
   >prevailing opinion that (almost) nothing ever should be global, but   
   >*definitely* things should be local unless there is a good reason to   
   >the contrary.   
      
   I went from BASIC to assembly. The assembler I used was by Microsoft, and   
   maybe it supported scoping - I really don't remember, and I'm sure I   
   didn't use 90 percent of what it could do - but I know that it didn't   
   enforce scoping by default. I know that because when I finally tried to   
   learn a language that did, it was a big stumbling block. So I agree that   
   BASIC "mentally mutilated" me in that respect, but I disagree that I was   
   "beyond hope."   
      
   >File handling in BASIC was an abomination.  Integration with other   
   >languages was nonexistent.   
      
   Both of those limitations were irrelevant to me on my TRS-80 that could   
   only run BASIC and used an audio cassette recorder for storage. *That* was   
   the abomination.   
      
   My transition to QuickBASIC was pretty seamless. It had reasonable file   
   handling and integrated with my assembled .EXE files very well. I loved   
   QuickBASIC.   
      
   >Pointers and memory handling were just not   
   >a thing.  Error handling was absolutely ghastly.  Comments were ugly   
   >to the point that they were semi-unreadable, which is really a bad   
   >thing for your code's *comments*.   
      
   This gripe, I don't get.   
      
   100 REM THIS IS A COMMENT   
   110 REM IT IS PERFECTLY READABLE   
   120 REM WHETHER IT IS UGLY IS DEBATABLE   
      
   >It wasn't as bad as COBOL, at least.  That's the lowest bar ever set   
   >for anything, right there, but it's true.   
      
   David Carson   
   --   
   Dead or Alive Data Base   
   http://www.doadb.com   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)