From: INVALID_SEE_SIG@example.com.invalid   
      
   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.   
      
   File handling in BASIC was an abomination.  Integration with other   
   languages was nonexistent.  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*.   
      
   It wasn't as bad as COBOL, at least.  That's the lowest bar ever set   
   for anything, right there, but it's true.   
   --   
     _+_ From the catapult of |If anyone objects to any statement I make, I am   
   _|70|___:)=}- J.D. Baldwin |quite prepared not only to retract it, but also   
   \      /  baldwin@panix.com|to deny under oath that I ever made it.-T. Lehrer   
   ***~~~~----------------------------------------------------------------------   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)