The basic complex of foreign programmers -- my programming career started with basic

With regard to basic, edsger Dijkstra once said: "the students who have already learned basic cannot be enlightened. It is doomed to fail to teach them excellent programming styles. They have lost their brains and are hopeless. They cannot become good programmers ."

Basic is the abbreviation of beginner's Sall-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, meaning "general symbol command code for Beginners". It was written in 1964 by two American Professors Thomas and John
G. kemeny is a computer language system designed based on the Fortran language. This simple and easy-to-learn programming language only had 17 Statements, 12 functions, and 3 commands. -- Translator's note

Edsger wybedijkstra, a Dutch computer scientist who graduated from Leiden University in the Netherlands, studied physics and mathematics and later switched to computer science. He was awarded the Turing Award in 1972, known as the Nobel Prize in the computer science field, and then received the afips Award in 1974.
Harry Goode Memorial Award, 1989 ACM sigcse outstanding contribution to computer science education teaching, and 2002 ACM
Podc's most influential Paper Award. -- Translator's note

I'm sure he's exaggerating for a certain effect. I really appreciate the paper he wrote in 1972: "The humble programmer" (humble programmer ), however, I cannot agree with the humble view that "choosing the wrong programming language will damage the IQ of programmers. Although computer programming languages are constantly evolving, in my opinion, the biggest obstacle we face is not the choice of language, but the reality that different programmers can write fortran programs very differently. For pogo,"We met the enemy and he was ourselves."

Basic can indeed bring a sense of superiority. However, like many programmers of a certain age, I grew up with basic.

As I have mentioned before, a wonderful collision between early game consoles and programming occurred on the basic programming box Atari 2600. How can I miss this opportunity for personal experience? So I bought one on eBay.

Atari, the world's first computer gaming company, once created the myth of annual sales of $2 billion. -- Translator's note

I also bought an atari2600 keyboard controller. The overlay diagram is included with the box, and the two controllers are combined to form an original keyboard. (If you want to know what I have done with my website's advertising revenue, now you know ...... A large part is used to buy these messy items .)

Unexpectedly, the instructions for using this machine could not be found online, so I scanned it myself. I put it here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/25885309@n02/sets/72157604661612578. Let's take a look. Very interesting! Some people copied the instructions into HTML format, but without photos and charts, reading them would be boring.

I copied the BASIC Programming read-only memory in the atari2600 simulator. Then, a basic applet is compiled based on the machine instructions.

You will find that all other screenshots on the Internet are actually blank for basic programming on Atari 2600. This may be because I am the only one so obsessed with Atari 2600 and will try programming on it ...... It looks painful, but no one knows, unless you try it yourself. The process is really bad! I couldn't help laughing when I threw away my keyboard. But I must admit that, after I completed the first "program", I was a little excited in my heart, because I gave the machine to my will. It makes me confident!

The package I got from eBay also contains several handwritten programming notes. I guess they were left behind by the 1980 s.

Isn't basic like this? Even the clumsy basic on Atari 2600, you can find some basic programming concepts. Isn't it?

Of course, if you really like computers, you don't have to program on the inconspicuous Atari 2600. The experience of playing games and programming on home computers is much better! For a long period of time, all home computers on the market were pre-installed with basic. Whether it's a second-generation apple, Commodore 64, or Atari 800, the first basic prompt that comes into view after the machine starts. Basic has become a specialized language for programmers.

Commodore is a personal computer company that worked with apple in the same period. It once created a series of miracles. On April 9, 1994, Commodore stopped production and declared its bankruptcy. -- Translator's note

Even IBM's PC is pre-installed with basica (Advanced BASIC), or GW-BASIC, and eventually evolved into QBASIC (Quick BASIC ). It was not until Microsoft launched Windows 2000 that they had permanently exited the stage.

In fact, if you want to use an old 8-Bit Apple, Commodore, or Atari home computer to do anything cutting-edge, you must learn assembly language. I don't remember the advent of any compiling language. turbopascal was no stranger to the advent of IBM PC and the DOS era. Compiled languages are profound, hard to understand, and expensive. It was not until Turbo Pascal became popular at a very low price ($49.99. (By the way, you may have noticed that Anders hejlsberg is the primary creator of Turbo Pascal and later Delphi. He is now a technical expert of Microsoft and serves as the chief designer of C # language. Many geeks with old qualifications, such as myself, are enthusiastic about. Net for a large part of the reason .)

Even if you don't have superb programming skills and cannot become the next David Crane or Will Wright, you can still write a lot of interesting games and programs with old basic. By using basic, you can easily know whether you like programming and whether you are programming. In our opinion, "Creative Computing" is like a Bible in the procedural world.

For a long period of time, as long as you are really interested in the computer, you will inevitably write programs in basic. It is like the air you breathe, and you cannot escape it. It is also the best choice. Every time you start the machine, the command line prompt always blinks at you: Why don't you tap some basic commands to see what will happen? What follows is a strange feeling that everything is possible, and you enter the infinitely broad world of computer! In this way, thousands of programmers started their career!

Basic does not make people worry.-- Dijkstra has already said it! If you have to talk about things in basic, it just opens the eyes of many young programmers. Basic may be the earliest test method to identify whether you are a programmer "sheep" or a "goat" that is not programmed ". Of course, not everyone has a perfect ending, but some have achieved remarkable results.

Whether or not we are still writing programs in basic,The spirit of basic persists!