Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!bloom-beacon!oberon!sdcrdcf!trwrb!scgvaxd!ashtate!dbase!awd
From: awd@dbase.UUCP (Alastair Dallas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Easy to Learn Mac Programming Environment
Summary: Structured, perhaps, but without structures
Message-ID: <362@dbase.UUCP>
Date: 25 May 88 17:03:25 GMT
Organization: Ashton Tate Development Center Glendale Cal.
Lines: 21

MS_BASIC sounds like it has evolved into a good quick-and-dirty Mac
language with a good deal of power.  However, I have to take exception
to the comments to the effect that 1) "BASIC is a good first language
to learn," and 2) "BASIC includes all the structured constructs of 
other languages."  Because there is no data hiding (all variables
and labels have global scope), BASIC makes a terrible first language,
only a little worse than starting with assembly language.  The reason
is that someone who is used to having access to everything at all times
can usually find a way to bend an otherwise structured language (like C)
to maintain this same (wrong) world view.  Thus, BASIC-as-first-language
really does warp a programmer's attitude, making it difficult for him
to understand how to use a good language.  Second, BASIC may include
structured constructs like WHILE..WEND so that you can avoid the GOTO,
it still supports only scalars and arrays of scalars.  This is another
fine reason that BASIC is a bad first language: records or structs are
one of the most useful tools a programmer has for intelligent data
representation and for information hiding.  

By the way, my first language was BASIC.  I converted to C in 1983.

/alastair/