Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!hplabs!hp-ses!hpcuhb!hpcllla!hpclisp!hpclskh!skh
From: skh@hpclskh.HP.COM (The Polar Bear)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: Who uses BASIC these days (for serious application writing)
Message-ID: <960017@hpclskh.HP.COM>
Date: 12 May 89 18:04:31 GMT
References: <11581@well.UUCP>
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Calif. Language Lab
Lines: 21

There are lots of companies that use BASIC for some or all of their work.
Most of this is for commercial work (banking, insurance, etc), but some BASIC
languages run quite well (and are popular) under UNIX systems.  
The main reason for using BASIC seems to be the interpreter.  This is especially
true if the BASIC can be compiled as well.  I think the most popular ones
have structured control statements, but many do not have fancy structures for
support of records and pointers.  The ability to interact with other languages
always adds to the functionality of the language.

To the person who said "Avoid it like the plague":
	You have missed out on the best features of BASIC.  The better ones
make great prototyping languages, especially if an interpreter is available.
LISP and its derivatives may be better, but they tend to be more costly,
and certainly are not for everyone.

As for me, yes I write in BASIC, Pascal, and C.  For "quick and dirty" programs,
I'll take BASIC any day.  I wouldn't use C for financial programs myself.
Lack of support for fully accurate decimal arithmetic is a killer.
But to sell and distribute a program...C and Pascal win out.

skh