Re: Beginner to programming. References to understand terms.

[Dirk Laurie <dirk.laurie@...>]

2017-04-25 4:57 GMT+02:00 Coda Highland <chighland@gmail.com>:
> On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 5:51 AM, steve donovan
> <steve.j.donovan@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 2:41 PM, Andrew Starks <andrew@starksfam.org> wrote:
>>> First C, then Lua. Those that drop out didn't want to be programmers. That's
>>> a difficult message to receive when you're 8, but it's a harsh world. ;)
>>
>> You jest sir ;)  There is a useful distinction between 'people who
>> need to do a little programming' and 'programmers'.
>>
>> Might as well say - why not Rust? ;)
>>
>
> I started in BASIC and look how I turned out! v￣v

BASIC on the Apple II was in many ways the ideal beginner's language.

Any clever kid could pick it up in 10 minutes just by watching someone
who already knew it. In a house with five kids and one computer, like I
had in the 1980s (not counting my Olivetti, they were not allowed to touch
that), they had to make their 30 minute-turns worth while, and the other
four are going to look at the performance every minute, vicariously lifting
survivors with a chopper or listening for crunching boots on gravel — and
watching the whizzkid doing Basic. Not keeping quiet, of course, so the
art of grunting out monosyllabic almost-informative hints without losing
one's own concentration is also learnt.

BASIC had just a few keywords and automatically numbered your lines.
The system, such as it was, was integrated with it,  And it had graphics.
MOVE 10, TURN 30, PEN DOWN, MOVE 20. It gave a wow factor.

And then came Z80 cards, and CP-M, and our current computing world
was born.