Xref: utzoo alt.religion.computers:2532 comp.windows.ms.programmer:3218 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcsun!ukc!slxsys!ibmpcug!mantis!mathew From: mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.windows.ms.programmer Subject: Re: ap, Windows BASIC Message-ID: Date: 20 Jun 91 18:15:28 GMT References: <1991Jun20.034205.2661@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> Organization: Mantis Consultants, Cambridge. UK. Lines: 46 rogerhef@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (Roger Heflin) writes: > In mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) wr > >If it *is* BASIC, or BASIC with a few extensions, as I expect, then I stand > >by my comments. > > You yell about BASIC being bad. Have you ever used Microsoft QuickBasic? Yes. As a matter of fact I have. > It is structured and considerable easier to use than any other language. It may be "structured", but it isn't easier to use than (for example) LOGO. > The language look pretty much like any other structured language, such as > C or Pascal, the only limitation that QB has is it does not have pointers, That's an *ENORMOUS* limitation. It really really limits the sorts of data structures you can use in an imperative (C-like) language. There are alternatives to pointers, but BASIC doesn't have them either. > This BASIC has full recursive modules, functions, and structures. Yes, but what about all the things it *doesn't* have? I mean, these days macro assemblers support recursive modules, functions, and structures. > You are reading > too much into the word BASIC. You are taking what GWBASIC looks like and > most of the other old BASIC versions and assuming that all BASICS are the > same, they are not. The BASIC has more than a few extensions. I have *never* used GWBASIC. All the BASICs I've used for the last ten years have had recursion, functions, local variables, multi-line IF...THEN...ELSE, REPEAT...UNTIL, and so on. They're *still* crap. > I can write > a bad program in it, but I can do that in any language. Right. But can you write a *good* program in BASIC? Can you write a program which is as good as one written in Modula-2, Pascal, Smalltalk, Scheme, C++..? mathew