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From: jdudeck@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (John R. Dudeck)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Protection mode in BASIC
Message-ID: <26bda45a.6030@petunia.CalPoly.EDU>
Date: 6 Aug 90 17:09:46 GMT
References: <4020@sonata> <1990Jul31.124048.19015@druid.uucp> <56293@microsoft.UUCP>
Distribution: alt
Organization: Cal Poly State Univ,CSC Dept,San Luis Obispo,CA 93407
Lines: 41



In an article fredf@microsoft.UUCP (Fred FREELAND) wrote:
>>I can help you but first let me mount my soapbox.  If you are writing programs
>>for commercial sale you shouldn't be using BASIC.  If not you still shouldn't
>>be using BASIC for anything but quick and dirty stuff. 
>
>What unmitigated crap! I hope someone kicks the slats out of your soapbox.
>Who are you to tell this person they shouldn't be programming in BASIC? Do 
>you also prescribe what religion people should be? It's the same kind of thing.
>I am grievously offended by your comments.
>
>Maybe GW-BASIC isn't the best program development environment in the world, but
>if it gets the job done, who cares. If people buy his product, they must not
>care. I get absolutely sick to death of these "programmer's" who believe that
>C is the "one true faith." It simply ain't so!  BASIC has come a long ways
>since the days of a 4K interpreter. It has evolved into a highly sophisticated,
>modern, structured programming language. It's stupid comments like yours that
>prevent many people from improving their productivity and improving their
>products by doing things with BASIC that BASIC does well.  I wouldn't begin
>to write screen drivers in BASIC, but I wouldn't do it in C either.  

[Defense of modern BASICs deleted].

Now let's not get too carried away here.  What the original poster was
apparently saying we should stop using is the old-style interpreted BASIC
with line numbers, such as BASICA and GW-BASIC.

What Mr. Freedman did in his the above paragraph is to shift the discussion
to modern BASICs, which are, as he points out, not the same animal.  But
GW-BASIC is in no stretch of the imagination a "highly sophisiticatd,
modern, structured programming language".

I bet that in Bill Gates' programming contest where he challenged all these
other programmers, he wasn't using GW-BASIC!


-- 
John Dudeck                                 "I always ask them, How well do
jdudeck@Polyslo.CalPoly.Edu                            you want it tested?"
ESL: 62013975 Tel: 805-545-9549                               -- D. Stearns