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Questions tagged [basic]

BASIC is the acronym for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code which is a programming language developed in 1964.

BASIC is a very common language that can be used for development on almost every operating system. Versions of BASIC such as VBA, VB6 or VB.NET are very commonly the first programming language learned by people who now program for a living.

Since VBA was the scripting language included in every copy of Office since the 1990s, it is very common for companies to come to depend heavily on applications written around Excel or Access. Because these applications slowly grew from something that one person needed to get done, into something the company now needs to survive, many developers have come to hate BASIC and everything it is included in.

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Was classical BASIC ever used for commercial software development, and if so, how were limitations overcome?

Many of us, including me, started their programming life with programs written on home computers, something like 10 PRINT "ENTER RADIUS" 20 INPUT R 30 PRINT "CIRCUMFERENCE="; 2 * R * PI 40 PRINT "AGAIN?" 50 INPUT A$ 60 IF A$="Y" THEN GOTO 10 70…
user281377
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Does it hurt to learn bits of many programming languages?

I started my programming career with BASIC, during 9th grade. I learned a bit of BASIC by writing simple programs to add, subtract and to print. Then I went to the university and took Computer Information and Systems Engineering. In the first year I…
user4124
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Do you think that exposure to BASIC can mutilate your mind?

It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration -- Edsger W. Dijkstra I have deep respect to Dijkstra but…
Maniero
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How mature is FreeBASIC?

A friend of mine is considering using FreeBASIC in a critical production environment. They currently use GWBasic, and they want to make a soft transition towards more modern languages. I am just worried that there might be undetected bugs in the…
David
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Basic features for a basic language? DSL suggestions?

I've finally begun to understand the complexity behind creating an interpreter and a compiler. I've built several versions of TinyBasic, 1964 (Dartmouth) Basic, and my own expansions on those languages before getting to this point. The most recent…
Dominick
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How does BASIC locate an out-of-order NEXT statement when the loop body is skipped

Set the WABAC machine, Sherman. This question is about BASIC in general, and Microsoft's BASIC-80 in particular. Old school basic. With line numbers. How do (or, rather, did) old-school BASIC interpreters handle FOR...NEXT loops when the loop…
Wayne Conrad
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Fiction that includes BASIC programs

Back in what must've been the mid-80s, when every microcomputer included BASIC and Choose Your Own Adventure Books were really popular, there were some novels that had BASIC programs listed in the text, for you to type in and further enjoy. For…
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TRS-80 Color BASIC as an inspiration for a new programming language

For a time now I have been wanting to make my own programming language. I'm 17 and the only language I know is Color BASIC. I know that compared to today's complicated languages, it's pretty weak. But I was wondering if it would be hard to create…
landon
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Writing Clean, Elegant Procedural Code (BASIC): Is There Such a Thing?

I learned to code in OO languages. I've always been interested in design patterns, clean code, etc., etc. - you know the type. Now at work I'm using a BASIC dialect. Given modern programming values, should we try to carry over these same principles…
Tom Tom
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Small Basic vs Microsoft Small Basic

Are Small Basic (SB) and Microsoft Small Basic (MSB) related or is this a confusion based upon similar names? I have read that SB is written in C and is GPL. The oldest date on SourceForge is 2004 but the facebook group states its over 10years old.…
snmcdonald
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Why is BASIC bad?

Possible Duplicate: Do you think that exposure to BASIC can mutilate your mind? BASIC, and related dialects, have long been branded "bad". I've seen it said by some of the best programmers I know, professors at Stanford, and even one of the most…
Bob
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How does Matplotlib / other GUIs work to draw the individual pixels?

So I wondered how matplotlib (or equivalents) makes graphics appear on your screen. I found that matplotlib does not do the drawing itself; instead it is built on TKinter, which is built on TK, which is...and the rabbit hole/stack continues. Is the…
armoured-moose
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Why do some BASIC programmers put a redundant END statement at the end of the code?

Admittedly it's probably mostly in traditional BASICs (which require line numbers) that I've seen this. Take these examples (cribbed from Wikipedia): 10 PRINT "Hello, World!" 20 END and 10 INPUT "What is your name: "; U$ 20 PRINT "Hello "; U$ 30…
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Have any of you tried "Basic for Android"?

I have developed for Android for half a year or so and it is going quite well. I found the learning curve steep in the beginning, but then I somehow got the idea of it all and now I don't have to fight so much anymore. Rather I spend the time on…
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Why was the caret used for exponentiation in BASIC?

As far as I have been able to find, the first language to use ^ for exponentiation was BASIC, in 1964. Earlier languages, such as Fortran, used other symbols such as ** for exponentiation (although in Fortran's case this was likely influenced by its…
CoffeeTableEspresso
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