12 May
2005
12 May
'05
10:54 p.m.
On Thu, 12 May 2005, Allison wrote:
Basic is a language that is easy to code badly.
THat's an understatement! :-)
I'm one of the few that was mostly BASIC and ASM
until UCSD P-system
and decided to learn a "structured" language. I was eye opening the
difference coding learned. After that I tried writing basic using
block structure and treating goto and return like Call and JUMP with
better looking results. I can see the effect it had looking at some
of my really old code.
I agree with an earlier post. BASIC improperly can rot your mind,
it's bad drugs for programmers.
I write "BASIC" today -- in PICs. The compilers are often
appropriate for the target machine -- a non-orthogonal processor
with no real addressing modes, etc. The compiler just generates
(not very good) inline code and links in library functions.
I write very structured and hopefully readable code in PIC BASIC.
I use knowledge of the chip and the compiler to "optimize" (eg.
avoid * and / if at all possible (usually).
The bottom line is: Programming is programming. You do good work,
or shit work, your choice! It's a poor workmammal who blames their
tools!
(Though around computers there are truly bad tools... :-)