Xref: utzoo alt.religion.computers:2567 comp.human-factors:317 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!decwrl!netcomsv!mrs From: mrs@netcom.COM (Morgan Schweers) Newsgroups: alt.religion.computers,comp.flame,comp.human-factors Subject: Re: ap, Windows BASIC Message-ID: <1991Jun29.015126.24258@netcom.COM> Date: 29 Jun 91 01:51:26 GMT References: Organization: McAfee Associates Lines: 58 Some time ago mathew@mantis.co.uk (Giving C News a *HUG*) happily mumbled: >enag@ifi.uio.no (Erik Naggum) writes: >> Can you imagine a telephone which is so easy to use that you don't >> need any time learning how to use it? [...] >> Now think of all the incredible losers in the world who >> could actually _need_ a menu-based phone. > >You certainly picked a bad example there. > >Telephones are *incredibly* badly designed; everything from the upside-down >keypad to the stupid numeric "star 2 6 hash" commands. > >[much support for Erik's comment deleted] Greetings, Heh heh heh... So let me get this straight. You would prefer a mildly powerful but 100% unportable development system over a VERY powerful and portable system. Right? To clarify... VB is, evidently, a reasonable adaptation of BASIC. Claiming, however, that this legitimizes BASIC is like putting a powerful engine in a VW Bug to convince people to buy VW Bugs. All these new features are 'bags on the side' of BASIC. It makes it 'better', but doesn't change the important information about the language. (Like it's lack of pointers, and it's lack of proper syntax checking.) If you do use VB as a language, you'll never be able to port your application to another environment. If you use C[++] as a language you'll be able to port to *FAR* more systems, easily. If portability isn't an issue *AND* pointers aren't needed, then you're not likely doing much real programming. Either that, or you're a wee bit short- sighted. (There comes a time in most projects when someone says, "Oooh! Wouldn't it be Neat-O-Keen if we could sell this under the XYZZY platform as well?" Either that or, "Oh! The LOS (Little Operating System) isn't the Hot Thing(tm) anymore! I guess we'll all port our software to the BOS (Bigger Operating System)!") In summary, Get A Real Language! (*heh heh heh* I love comp.flame... I can say things like that!) The person who claimed that C and Pascal wouldn't warn you about mistyped variables made me laugh... I love it when people rail against languages they've clearly never used. *grin* C assumes that the programmer is right, but also assumes that the programmer *CAN BE WRONG*! If it didn't assume that then there wouldn't be any compile-time error messages. As someone else said, the 'Oh! A new variable! No problem!' approach went out with some random early version of Fortran. I'm reading this from comp.flame, so I don't want to hear about inappropriate crossposting! >mathew -- Morgan Schweers P.S. If YOUR site doesn't get comp.flame, COMPLAIN TO YOUR ADMINISTRATOR! -- mrs@netcom.com | Morgan Schweers | Good code, good food, good sex. Is ms@gnu.ai.mit.edu| These messages | anything else important? -- Freela Kilroy Balore | are not the +-------------------------------------- Freela | opinion of anyone.| I *AM* an AI. I'm not real...