Date   : Sat, 01 Apr 2006 20:58:24 +0100
From   : "A.J. Davis" <mail@...>
Subject: Re: Basic & BBC Basic

Anders Carlsson wrote:

> BBC Basic undoubtly was
> (one of) the best Basic in the 80'ties, but would it be adequate today?
>
I'd say yes.  I've seen far too many 'professional' VB applications 
written by amateurs who appear to have never even dabbled with a pre 
Windows 95 computer and have very little concept of life before Microsoft.

I was taught BBC Basic, Pascal, Logo, Cobol and 6502 Assembler at school 
- all before I was 16 (learning 6502 on the Vic-20 at home).  Nowadays 
the IT curriculum consists primarily of Microsoft Word, Access and Excel 
and very little else of technical merit. They've even phased out Logo 
(and the chance to use my Valiant Turtle) in favour of photo 
manipulation (although to be fair we do teach with Dreamweaver).  Now I 
realise that you can't really teach 6502 any more, but I think kids 
should be shown more than Microsoft apps.