FUfuball63·Feb 28, 2021
I've been thinking about BASIC a lot, as I've been looking for "the easiest programming language for a non-programmer to learn". I'm not exactly sure that rewriting these in Python/Ruby/JS/VB.NET using "better coding patterns", because a lot of the things programmers take for granted are really tough for complete newcomers. Examples:
- I remember when I started, using BlitzBasic, I had a really hard time understanding the concept of arrays.
- A friend of mine, when showing him the statement 'x = x + 1' was confused; surely, x cannot also equal x+1.
- When teaching Python, the concept of function parameters and variable scope is always a struggle.
To some degree, having spaghetti code and all globals is useful for teaching because it 1) gets people excited to program and see something working and 2) demonstrates why you don't want to do t
Read the rest
hose things. I remember when trying to write my first text based CYOA game, I was so excited to add content to it and see it on screen, but also learned very quickly that having to scroll through 20 pages of if statements was not fun, and why functions would help. I'm not sure if someone explaining "encapsulation" to me would have really taken root.
I think there should be a rewrite of the book, for modern languages and development environments, but keep the complexity extremely low, like 70's BASIC was intended.
EDIT: Just looked at https://github.com/coding-horror/basic-computer-games/blob/m... , it actually looks like a pretty good blend of original but with mild improvements.