Post #2456190

2026-05-01 19:08 UTC

10 The #BASIC (Beginner&#39;s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) programming language was first released on May 1st, 1964. 20 Many of us typed our first lines of code in BASIC. 30 Later on we were taught that GOTO is bad. 40 My first programming job in the 80&#39;s was writing in DEC&#39;s Basic-Plus-2 on a PDP/11. 50 Happy birthday BASIC. 32767 END

Replies (2)

@RonInDortmund@mastodon.scot 2026-05-01 19:44

@hananc@tooot.im Quote from Edsger Dijkstra: "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."

Open ##2744333
@shaib@tooot.im 2026-05-02 15:26

@hananc@tooot.im I have always felt that there was something magical, deeply appealing in the first program most of us kids wrote: 10 PRINT "(your name)" 20 GOTO 10 In all the better languages, you'd need to start with the looping (and the common first program doesn't loop at all). And psychologically, having to consider the repetition before the thing that is repeated, feels much more complex. There is something very playful in "Do it, now do it again", and better languages are too serious for this.

Open ##2744335