Xref: utzoo alt.religion.computers:2498 comp.windows.ms.programmer:3106 Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.ms.programmer Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca!mroussel From: mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Marc Roussel) Subject: Re: ap, Windows BASIC Message-ID: <1991Jun14.174946.5065@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca> Organization: Department of Chemistry, University of Toronto References: <1991Jun11.214541.24352@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Date: Fri, 14 Jun 1991 17:49:46 GMT In article mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) writes: >Microsoft has now announced Visual BASIC, a mutant BASIC with Windows. This >strikes me as being just what the world did NOT need. [...] >Until now, PD Windows 3.0 programs have mostly been of fairly good quality. >I confidently predict that Visual BASIC will change that. Isn't this a rather mean-spirited attitude? The fact is that the average person has an occasional need to write a simple program in an easy language. BASIC (along with a few other tools) fills that need. Saying that the world does not need BASIC (or something like it) is essentially saying that only the high priesthood of the programming profession should ever write computer programs. If people want BASIC, let them have it. PD programs come with no guarantees. If I write something and make it available to others it's because I think that someone else might want it. If you don't like it or it crashes your machine, there's a DEL command in DOS (and rm in Unix, and so on...) to deal with that. Marc R. Roussel mroussel@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca