Date   : Sat, 01 Apr 2006 20:47:44 +0200
From   : Anders Carlsson <anders.carlsson@...>
Subject: Re: Basic & BBC Basic

On Sat, 1 Apr 2006, A.J. Davis wrote:

> We're contemplating teaching school pupils programming again,
> and BBC Basic is the only Basic we're considering.

In comp.sys.cbm (perhaps cross-posted to other groups too) there was
a discussion a month ago about various Basics and modern languages.
Perhaps I'm over-simplifying a bit, but the conclusion about which
programming language to teach kids - if at all - was divided into
two teams:

* the loyal Microsoft person who said Visual Basic and upwards is
   a natural extention to the 8-bit Basics

* the rest who strongly cheered for the free language Python

>From an immediate useability point of view, neither may be what the
industry mainly uses, but if we're talking 10-15 year old kids, they
are not supposed to take a job in the IT industry right away. Heh, if
not even a university degree on its own sometimes is merit enough to
get an IT job on the introductionary level...

When I begun my upper studies in computer science 12 years ago, I had
been taught Pascal and a bit of C in school. The lecturer at the
university outright told us students that he preferred if students
had no former programming education, perhaps no experience even:

It is much easier to teach someone how to do it "right" if you don't
have to un-teach them what they do "wrong". BBC Basic undoubtly was
(one of) the best Basic in the 80'ties, but would it be adequate today?

-- 
Anders Carlsson