Simplicity Revisited

In my last post I explained that classic BASIC was implemented as an exploratory programming environment. It occurred to me that my earlier post about simplicity touches on an extremely important aspect of BASIC's exploratory qualities.

List most software today, programming tools do 101+ things. This reminds me of a Nova documentary I saw about jet fighter planes. The cockpit of a modern jet fighter has more dials than a clock store and more buttons than a sewing shop. The documentary explained was that these were all there so that the pilot would be able to do lots of useful things. As it turns out, not many of the things in the cockpit are useful for flying an airplane in combat.

As an exploratory programming language, early BASIC was simple to learn. There was no GUI. Windows, icons and other graphical features do not always improve software (although they can). There were only a few commands and ideas that you needed to learn. Was this enough? Maybe not, but its simplicity is one of the essential concepts that made it successful.

"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." --- Antoine de St. Exupery, Wind, Sand, and Stars, 1939