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From: mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.lang
Subject: Re: Good Things About BASIC
Message-ID: <779@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Date: Fri, 1-Mar-85 05:26:12 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.779
Posted: Fri Mar  1 05:26:12 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 3-Mar-85 03:37:58 EST
References: <401@vax2.fluke.UUCP>
Reply-To: mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP (Praiser of Bob)
Organization: Missionaria Phonibalonica
Lines: 35
Summary: 

["LISP is a local optimum in the space of programming languages."]

In article <401@vax2.fluke.UUCP> kurt@fluke.UUCP (Kurt Guntheroth) writes:
>BASIC is a USEFUL
>LANGUAGE TO SOLVE CERTAIN IMPORTANT CLASSES OF PROBLEMS and anybody who
>categorically refuses to recognize its usefulness has condemned themselves
>to a life of working too hard on that class of problems.  (Or else is one of
>the lucky few who has at his disposal one of the tools which is actually
>better than BASIC for such tasks.)

Since I'm one of the people "categorically" refusing to recognize BASICs
usefulness, I'll reply. First, *any* language is useful to solve certain
classes of problems (otherwise, why build the thing in the first place?).
If BASIC appears to be the best available tool to solve a specific problem
I'll use it. That just doesn't happen very often anymore.

What I've said (repeatedly) is that "There is no class of problems for
which ANSI Minimal BASIC is the best tool." Maybe that's because I'm "one
of the lucky few" you mention. Nearly every system I've worked on for the
last five years has had a C compiler and a small LISP system.  Those, plus
a programmable calculator program of some sort (CALC, bc, or a spreadsheet)
are better tools than BASIC over an incredible range of problem classes.

Now, at this point I probably ought to bringup the old "higher-level"
argument. A programming language as a tool is "better" than another only to
the degree that it mimics your thoughts about the problem at hand. Since I
tend to think in terms of recursion, small routines and structured
programming constructs, translating solutions into BASIC is a burden. If
you think in terms of sequences of simple operations and transfer of
control, this is probably not true.

So I get to amend my statement to: "For me, there exists no class of
problems for which BASIC is the best tool."