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From: emjej@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro.6809
Subject: Re: BASIC09 for CoCo OS-9 - (nf)
Message-ID: <4717@uiucdcs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 27-Dec-83 22:42:46 EST
Article-I.D.: uiucdcs.4717
Posted: Tue Dec 27 22:42:46 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 6-Jan-84 01:45:31 EST
Lines: 42

#R:bbncca:-38700:uokvax:3500023:000:1354
uokvax!emjej    Dec 26 09:06:00 1983

Re true functions in BASIC09: there aren't any. (I'm disappointed, too.)

Other problems:

1. There are no global TYPE declarations. (Boy, this makes for a lot of
   typing (no pun intended) if you want to write a set of procedures to
   manipulate a TYPE.)

2. The debug mode won't let you print or tweak fields in a structure.
   (I hope everyone writes RS and Microware about this--the symbol table
   info and stuff to do that right ought to be available; I don't see
   why they didn't. This is the only blemish I can find on a *very*
   good debugging facility.)

3. No heap, and no reference types.

4. Procedures can't be passed as parameters (but you can invoke them
   using a string expression for the name of the one you want to run,
   so that problem is bypassable).

Those are the only gripes I have (well, the pretty-printing could be done
a little different--natter, grommish :-> ) about the language. The looping
constructs are pretty nice. For those who haven't seen them yet--there are
the traditional FOR, WHILE, and REPEAT, along with the generic

	LOOP
		<statement>*
	ENDLOOP

but also, within any loop one can have

	EXITIF <boolean> THEN
		<statement>*
	ENDEXIT

which has the following semantics: if <boolean> then execute the <statement>s
and then leave the innermost loop one happens to be in at the time.

						James Jones