In defence of C (was:Re:Anybody else tried FreeBasic (aka fbc)?)

[Alex Beamish]

On 10/12/05, Lennart Sorensen <lsorense-1wCw9BSqJbv44Nm34jS7GywD8/FfD2ys at public.gmane.org> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Oct 11, 2005 at 04:36:15PM -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
> > Amazingly enough, the original BASIC (at Dartmouth College) was an
> > incremental compiler. Each line was separately compiled, as it was
> > entered, to machine code! I think that that is the reason for the odd
> > (crude) variable naming rules -- all variables existed (26 x 11
> > numeric variables were possible).
> >
> > PS: I played with a later version of that BASIC implementation in
> > 1967. Mind you, I had no idea about compilers until perhaps year
> > later. What I was impressed with was time sharing (using a Teletype
> > terminal). Previously, I had mostly done batch computing with
> > turn-around measured in months.
>
> Hmm, I underestimated the age of basic it would seem. I thought it was
> from the 70s some time.


Well, I was fooling around with BASIC on a high school teletype machine
starting in Fall 1973, and it was not at all new by then .. it was a pretty
standard language that was used on quite a few systems.

Of course, my Dad got me addicted by showing my little bits of APL code, and
by road-testing an IBM 'portable' called the 5100 that did both APL and
BASIC. It was called a portable because .. it had a handle. That unit
weighed 50-60 pounds, and would only have fit on Andre the Giant's lap.

Alex

--
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Linux, Firefox and GMail .. what a combination.
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