Bronze Edition Guide - True BASIC

4. Writing and Running Your First Program
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The result is a little more than 29 miles per gallon. (If you get different results or if the program
doesn’t run, check that you entered the numbers correctly in your program and that
you spelled the words miles and gallons the same way throughout. LET, PRINT, and END
must also be spelled correctly.)
Each line in the program is a statement in True BASIC. Like sentences in English, each
statement contains an instruction that True BASIC can follow. Each statement begins with
a keyword. Your program uses three types of statements: LET, PRINT, and END. You
don’t have to type keywords in uppercase, but we’ve done that throughout this manual to
clearly distinguish them from the rest of the information in the statement. Keywords must
end with a space unless there is nothing else on the same line.
The LET Statement
The keyword LET tells True BASIC to assign a value to something. LET statements are
sometimes called assignment statements. The first line of the program assigns the value
420 to the word miles. When you again use miles in the PRINT statement, True BASIC
knows to use the value 420.
In programs, values such as 420 are called constants, and a name such as miles, which
could be assigned various values, is called a variable. You’ll learn more about constants
and variables in Chapter 6.