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Date:Mon Nov 13 18:05:23 1992 
Subject:Re: Ok, so pop *pop* may be a valid lang, but where's basic? 
From:Fred Freeland 
Volume-ID:921114.16 

In article <1992Nov13.003414.17585@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> tlhouse@nyx.cs.du.edu (fiver) writes:
>
>      ... but I *DO* know Basic is pretty much garbage when compared to
>other GOOD languages .. (I'm talking just normal, everyday basic, none of
>these silly basic compilers that look more like Pascal than Basic to me)
>.. (come to think of it, they aren't much good either) .. is there any
>*serious* development being done in Basic anymore?  Not really .. if so,
>I'd like to know where.

Boy are you out of touch with reality! I would like to know one thing though,
if you are so down on Basic, why do read this newsgroup? It sounds to me
like you just want to start some kind of flame war.

Anyway, back to the "out of touch" issue.  Believe me, there is a LOT of
serious development being done with Basic. I've attended Basic developer's
conferences and you'd be surprised by the breadth of people who are developing
serious applications with Basic PDS 7.1, Visual Basic for Windows, Visual
Basic for MS-DOS, and yes, even QuickBasic 4.5. Now I can't run down the
names of prominent programmers you would know to lend credence to my claim,
but I can tell you that sales of Basic language products has NEVER been
better. 

Granted, this may only be true on the MS-DOS platform, but I think that safely
represents a sizable portion of the programming public.  The problem seems
to continue to be that people think of Basic as something less than a 
full-fledged programming language and it's not.  At one time, it may have
been, by times have changed and so has Basic.  I run across people all
the time who are closet Basic programmers.  When there's a bunch of C
programmer's around, hey, they're C programmers, but talk to them one-on-
one and mention Basic, and you may be surprised by their admissions. 

It's like it's not cool to be a Basic programmer. Never mind that you can
get the job done in half the time with half the people, it's just not cool.
Some people have recognized that Basic serves a truly useful role as a
programming language and are not afraid to try it.  Others, perhaps like
you, simply write it off as a vestige of the past.  Basic has been around
a very long time, and I'm absolutely certain it will be around a lot longer.


-- 
Frederick F. Freeland Jr.                        "Of all the things I've lost,  Microsoft Corporation                               I miss my mind the most!"   One Microsoft Way  
Redmond, WA 98052 (206) 882-8080                                                                                                                                internet: fredf@microsoft.com                                                   arpanet:  fredf%microsoft@uw-beaver.ARPA
uucp:     uunet!microsoft!fredf                                                                                                                                 Opinions expressed over this signature are my OWN and not those of my employer!