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Date: Mon, 05 Nov 2001 14:10:50 -0500
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
Organization: No Conspiracy Here...
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Subject: Re: Text-Based Games
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Joe Mason wrote:

> In article <b8aa11df.0111031754.2c5b9dac@posting.google.com>,
> Soap <soap54321@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >you dont want to.  I would just write it in BASIC, as that is the
> >easiest for a new programmer to learn.  QBASIC is pretty simple, and
> BASIC is *not* easiest for a new programmer to learn.  It was easiest back in
> the 60's, when the alternatives were FORTRAN and ALGOL, but now it's one of
> the more clunky languages.

Depends on your definition of "clunky" and what you're using it for, really.


> (You have to remember that IF blocks end with
> ENDIF, and WHILE blocks end with WEND, and FOR blocks end with - um, I'm not
> sure.  It's been too long.)

NEXT, since you kinda-sorta asked.  Well, unless that changed when I wasn't
looking...


> It's certainly not as bad a language anymore than it was when it had line
> numbers,

Actually, I'd argue that it's easier to learn BASIC-with-line-numbers than modern
BASIC.  It's a pain in the neck to have to renumber things, yes, but otherwise
it's an exercise in "flattening" a flowchart, which most students can do, just
like they can typically describe an everyday activity algorithmically.

Learning *structured* programming is harder, coming from such a background, but
that's hardly the issue at hand...

Of course, I may be biased, here, having been weaned on BASIC and LOGO about six
months after learning to read...


> but still, I recommend Python.  It lets you learn the basic concepts
> of programming (blocks, control structures, objects) without having to care
> about syntax biting you.

I'll go further and recommend Ruby for pretty much the same reasons.  I haven't
looked into it extensively (yet), but what I've seen has impressed me greatly.
It's got a genuine, almost-like-Smalltalk object-oriented system, most of the
overhead of which can be ignored for tasks that are better suited to imperative
programs, and it appears to be one of those languages where you can start easy
and build a program organically, without it turning into "data compost"...

The same is true of Python, I'll grant you--and even PERL, to a certain
extent--but Ruby is a bit more "seamless" in the transition between the various
approaches.


