From: le@main.lekno.ws   
      
   David Carson  wrote:   
   > 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."   
      
   I once took what was meant to be an assembly language course   
   but never really got to that subject matter,whether the very   
   few of us in it or the instructor were to blame.   
      
   >>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.   
      
   NorthStar liberated the Processor Technology SOL-20s that were my main   
   computers from 1977-85 from the cassette limitation...both with their   
   DOS and floppy drives and their BASIC.   
      
   > 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.   
      
   -=-=-   
   The World Trade Center towers MUST rise again,   
   at least as tall as before...or terror has triumphed.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)