mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (02/05/85)
In article <7873@brl-tgr.ARPA> Earl Weaver (VLD/ATB) <earl@Brl-Vat.ARPA> writes: >Right on! I've found that usually when people sneer at a language they are >broadcasting their ingnorance. BASIC, of course, is an exception. It ranks just below any reasonable assembly language and just above a poor programmable calculator as a tool for problem solving. For a detailed list of problems, just ask. Better yet, tell me what you think it's good for, and I'll tell you why LISP is better. Should you be crazy enough to want BASIC for Unix, you can get one or two from kolstad@convex.UUCP by sending him a tape. I'd give you copies, but that would violate the license I signed. <mike
wapd@houxj.UUCP (Bill Dietrich) (02/13/85)
Why are people so intolerant of BASIC ? Every language has some type of usefullness for some community of users. BASIC is useful on Unix in at least two ways that I can think of : it allows one to migrate software from BASIC-only systems to the Unix-based system, and it allows a new Unix user who doesn't know C to use a familiar language while learning Unix. I never use BASIC myself for anything. But arguments that it is worthless, inferior, outdated, etc are incorrect. It may be totally useless to you if you know C and don't have any software written in BASIC that you want to use. But you are only one of the many types of computer user. A version of BASIC that supports matrix operations may be the best possible language in existence for a user who needs to do lots of quick, throwaway programs that do simple matrix operations. The same argument holds for any other language. Lots of people use COBOL (which I can't stand) for good reasons : they can't afford to rewrite all of the COBOL-based software that they depend on, or their managers only understand COBOL, or the government has adopted COBOL as a standard, or some such reason. Bill Dietrich houxj!wapd
larry@cci-bdc.UUCP (Larry DeLuca) (02/19/85)
> > Why are people so intolerant of BASIC ? Every language > has some type of usefullness for some community of users. > BASIC is useful on Unix in at least two ways that I can > think of : it allows one to migrate software from BASIC-only > systems to the Unix-based system, and it allows a new Unix > user who doesn't know C to use a familiar language while > learning Unix. > > I never use BASIC myself for anything. But arguments that > it is worthless, inferior, outdated, etc are incorrect. > It may be totally useless to you if you know C and don't > have any software written in BASIC that you want to use. > But you are only one of the many types of computer user. > A version of BASIC that supports matrix operations may > be the best possible language in existence for a user > who needs to do lots of quick, throwaway programs that > do simple matrix operations. > There are several problems with this. First of which is that the power of most BASICs varies inversely as the size of the CPU (micro hackers use it a lot, mainframe hackers don't). Second, there is NO standard BASIC. You would probably want to cross DEC BASIC-Plus and Microsoft BASIC to come up with something reasonable (DEC has the matrix capabilities and a pseudo-structured approach that while inconsistent with many BASICs (though it supports standard con- structs as well) is certainly a win over the spaghetti method of control structure. Most versions of BASIC are also couched in an OS so deeply that they don't come out -- the OS goes with them. SMC BASIC comes not only with the interpreter but all the wonderful little utilites to go with it. Try to get it to speak to UNIX -- I defy you. The worst problem is that porting something like BASIC to the machine without thinking out a good UNIX interface (which would be particularly difficult in BASIC) is that it encourages people to KEEP the DAMN PACKAGE IN BASIC!!! When you're paying a bunch of people to program in C, you don't want to have to call in junior-high students to fix your packages. The UNIX interface to most BASICs is LOUSY to nonexistant. The two were just never designed with any thought as to the existance of the other. I had a HELL of a time writing some C code that was supposed to update transactions on a remote machine that were generated by BASIC code -- the worst problem was that neither environment was really aware of the other enough that it cared. This resulted in less elegant and efficient solutions to problems that would have been trivial had the entire system been written in C. > The same argument holds for any other language. Lots of > people use COBOL (which I can't stand) for good reasons : > they can't afford to rewrite all of the COBOL-based > software that they depend on, or their managers only > understand COBOL, or the government has adopted COBOL > as a standard, or some such reason. > > Bill Dietrich > houxj!wapd Yes, the same disadvantages hold true. The version of COBOL i dealt with recently had a fixed table that held the pointers to the C sub- routines that you linked in. The fixed limit was 16, and there was NO argument passing. *** SELECT THIS-SPACE ASSIGN TO YOUR-MESSAGE. *** larry... -- uucp: ..mit-eddie!cybvax0!cci-bdc!larry arpa: henrik@mit-mc.ARPA This mind intentionally left blank.
jlup@cci-bdc.UUCP (John Lupien ) (02/20/85)
> > I never use BASIC myself for anything. But arguments that > it is worthless, inferior, outdated, etc are incorrect. > It may be totally useless to you if you know C and don't > have any software written in BASIC that you want to use. > A version of BASIC that supports matrix operations may > be the best possible language in existence for a user > who needs to do lots of quick, throwaway programs that > > > Bill Dietrich > houxj!wapd > <truncated for the sake of brevity> Yes, BASIC is a fine language for writing "throwaway" programs that will only be run once, however it is NOT fine for writing easily maintained software *systems* that will perform well. More importantly, if the BASIC version of a system is selling, engineering types who see a clear advantage to a C language re-write in terms of system load, performance, maintainability, and control (most BASIC programs can be modified at whim by the user) will be stymied by marketing types who aren't yet spending as much on support as they think a re-write will cost. Just wait, though. The moving finger points in many directions, and those who decide on BASIC will eventually be made to pay the FULL price. <imaginary data>