programming-for-dummies

Teaching Languages 53
Principles
Because programming was so difficult, both John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz
decided to create a new programming language specifically designed to teach
novices how to program. The goals of their new programming language,
dubbed BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), consists
of several principles:
✦ Be easy for beginners to understand and use.
✦ Be a general-purpose programming language.
✦ Be interactive.
✦ Shield the user from understanding the computer hardware and operating
system.
Book I
Chapter 3
Types of
Programming
Languages
Descriptive commands
To make the language easy to understand, BASIC uses descriptive commands,
which is something most programming languages don’t use. For example, this
assembly language program prints the words Hello, world! on-screen:
title Hello World Program
dosseg
.model small
.stack 100h
.data
hello_message db ‘Hello, world!’,0dh,0ah,’$’
.code
main proc
mov
mov
mov
mov
int
mov
int
main endp
end main
ax,@data
ds,ax
ah,9
dx,offset hello_message
21h
ax,4C00h
21h
Looking at the preceding assembly language program, isn’t what the preceding
commands are telling the computer simple and intuitive? (If you answered,
“Yes,” you’re either a computer genius or completely delusional.)