It's easy to tip the baby out with the bathwater, especially
with Basic, which is not a 'cool' language anymore (like C, Ada,
etc.).
Still, the development of Basic has not stood still. Witness
TrueBasic, by the Dartmouth group that came out with the original
Basic almost 30 years ago. TrueBasic could be chastened as
'looking like Pascal' [the cool language of the 1970s], but
one can write good, structured code with it, to solve simple
and small problems quickly.
Lastly, Basic [in its various versions since the early 60s]
has made computers and computing a lot more accessible to a lot
more people than the other languages it ran beside.
Is there a continuing niche for Basic? I think so. As long
as you want a simple little language for prototyping small
problems, the modern Basics can still hold their own, IMHO.
[None of this is intended to denigrate Pop, which from what
I've heard elsewhere, is an interesting tool for other things.
Personally, I could care less about whether Basic gets a comp.*
group or an alt.* group. I'm glad it has a group I can access,
so I can see what people are doing with Basic these days.]
Lou.
--
Lou Glassy (uesu03@giac1.oscs.montana.edu) Watch the field behind the plow
Earth Sciences Department Turn to straight, dark rows
Montana State University Put another season's promise
Bozeman, Montana 59715 USA In the ground... --Stan Rogers
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