programming-for-dummies

54
Teaching Languages
Now look at the command you need to use to print Hello, world! in
BASIC:
PRINT “Hello, world!”
That’s it — a single line. To print Hello, world! on-screen, you can either
write a 17-line assembly language program (and risk making a mistake on all
17 different lines), or you can write a one-line BASIC program that’s immediately
obvious and intuitive.
Versatility
Both professors Kemeny and Kurtz didn’t just want to create a programming
language that was easy to understand, but they also wanted to create a programming
language that could be put to practical use as well. That way, novices
could understand BASIC and then use BASIC to write actual programs. After all,
there’s no point in using BASIC to teach programming only to force programmers
to later use a completely different language if they wanted to write a useful
program.
So BASIC not only provides descriptive commands like PRINT, but it also
provides enough commands so you can write practically any type of program.
The only type of program you can’t create easily in BASIC are programs
that require you to understand and access the actual hardware of the computer
or operating systems.
One reason C programmers look down on BASIC as a toy language is because
BASIC doesn’t let you access the hardware or operating system like C does.
But one reason why C programs fail is precisely because programmers incorrectly
manipulate the computer hardware or operating system. By shielding
you from the details of the computer or operating system, BASIC reduces the
chance that your program accidentally crashes the computer.
Shielding you from having to know the technical details of the computer
hardware or operating system is actually another goal of BASIC. By using
BASIC, you can focus on solving a problem and not get distracted by the
technical details of the computer.
Another goal of BASIC is to provide the programmer with instant feedback.
Most programming languages force you to write an entire program before
you can run it. BASIC, on the other hand, was originally designed to let you
type in a single BASIC command at a time, and the computer tells you right
away whether the command works.
Such instant feedback made BASIC programming much easier and faster
than traditional programming languages. In addition, such rapid feedback
helped novices quickly figure out what they were doing wrong so they could
correct their mistakes right away.