Searching for BASIC

When people search for BASIC online using Google or Bing, or whatever, what keywords do they search with? Some of the obvious choices to me are:

• basic
• basic for windows
• qbasic
• visual basic
• vb

How would you search for BASIC?

Joy in Programming

I responded to a post on another blog (http://blogten.blogspot.com/2009/05/wards-comment.html) about how someone complained that the Smalltalk programming language permits the programmer too much freedom and that it's "too easy." The argument against being easy is that if it's too easy the programmer will be able to rush into creating software that is designed poorly. I have a hard time believing it is ever a benefit that something is hard to do. I think this applies to languages like BASIC so I'm copying what I posted there below.

Freedom is essential if you want to live life to the full, and not just in software development. We need to teach what is the best way to live in freedom, not impose a tyranny of suffocating "safety". If we don't build a culture of discipline and excellence then we deserve what we get. If we impose tons of rules to in an effort to prevent people from making mistakes we risk making software development such a burden that few people will want to do it anymore. It should be possible for software development to be an enjoyable activity, and for innovation and discovery to be experienced by newbies and experts. Joy is important in life.

Perhaps I oversimplify, but I hope this communicates an important idea effectively.

Easter Eggs?

Here's a link to a fun article about how Microsoft added Easter Eggs to their original BASIC implementations.

  http://www.osnews.comments/20361

It never even occurred to me to do this.  ;-)

Imposter?

I found an article named Web programming is hard to do right by a fellow named Bert Hubert. He does a nice job of explaining what is so hard about web programming and then goes on to describe how it could be done right. He even includes some BASIC code as an example. I like the questions he asks:

• How did we arrive at this mess?
• That's just the way it works, isn't it?
• How should it be then?
• Why not go back to the old days?
  

This article really resonates with the ideas that inspired Run BASIC. We need more people who think this way.

He provides some C-like code implementing what the BASIC code does. I guess that this new scripting language is code for a language called Imposter by Gabor Vitez which he mentions in a note at the top of his article.

I did a quick search for information about Imposter and its author but it seems to have withdrawn from the Internet. Does anyone know where to get a copy of Imposter to have a look?

Getting the word out about Run BASIC

I've been working on a whitepaper for a while now that tries to explain what it is that makes Run BASIC special and I've finally published it. It's titled "Run BASIC - A Breakthrough Web Application Server." Check it out here

It isn't usually wise to toot one's own horn too loud but I really believe that Run BASIC is unique. The trouble is that people are so overexposed to hype that they don't really easily believe that Run BASIC is different. In fact one person who helped me edit the whitepaper recently contacted me after trying Run BASIC and explained that he didn't realize how easy it really is until he tried it out.

Run BASIC v1.01!

I'm excited to announce that we've released Run BASIC v1.01. In addition to the Windows version, this is our first release for the Macintosh and also for Linux. Now we also have a free edition (not time limited!) so you can go and try it on your own computer. Run (don't walk) immediately to http://www.runbasic.com/ and get your own copy.

Teaching an old dog new tricks

One reader commented, "So should a basic language add object-oriented features? For me, it would simplify things. Inheritance and polymorphism produces much less code, and FOR ME, much more simplicity. However, for a procedure-oriented person, only complexity has been added."

This is an excellent point. One way that I've tried to add objects to Run BASIC is to have some built right in. You don't have to create them and you don't need to import them, but you can start using them. This is hopefully one way to begin to help procedural programmers warm up to objects and there's no reason why the rest of the program cannot be written in a procedural style.

The other thing that Run BASIC does is take the RUN statement and adapt it so that other BASIC programs that you run can be optionally treated as objects, or if that's too far of a leap you can think of it as a modular library of code, like so:

run "mymodule.bas", #module
#module doMyWork("some string")

Flight Simulator in BASIC

I remember years ago that there was an instrument-only flight simulator written in BASIC and ported to different computers.  It wasn't much to look at because it was all character based.  Tom Nally has just released an open source flight simulator written in Liberty BASIC.  This one blows the doors off that old classic.  Check it out here.

BASIC for the web a killer app?

If you ask the average geek worth his salt what was the killer app that launched the microcomputer revolution the answer would probably be "Visicalc, of course!"

I take issue with this answer. Long before the spreadsheet application Visicalc was a gleam in Dan Bricklin's eye the most important and powerful application for small computers was the BASIC programming language. Without Microsoft BASIC (and this is Microsoft's real and lasting legacy if you ask me) very few people would have been able to do anything useful with computers. Most versions of BASIC back then were variations on Bill Gates' original BASIC interpreter.

Without BASIC we would not have seen so many kids grow up to be programmers, myself included. This is the very reason why I work on BASIC language products because I believe that there's no good reason why anyone with a little desire and time shouldn't be able to create software.

Run BASIC is very much in the same spirit as the early BASIC, but for the web. Now anyone can create web applications. :-)

Run BASIC - Killer app for the Internet age!

Run BASIC for Windows, Mac and Linux

Tonight I am pleased to mention that we posted Run BASIC v1.0.1 beta 3 for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux (tested on Ubuntu). This is our first ever release of software for Linux, although people have been successfully using the Windows version using Wine.

It shouldn't take more than a couple of weeks to finalize v1.0.1 and release it. If you haven't had a look at Run BASIC check out the site. Make sure to watch the videos posted there to get a complete sense of just how easy web programming can be.

Eating my own dog food

Run BASIC comes with a bunch of example programs, one of which is a wiki called runWiki. It's about two pages long and is remarkable for what it does in those two pages, including the use of the SQLite database to store pages.

One of my customers (Neal) took that wiki and added a bunch of cool stuff to it like user accounts and many more formatting tags.

Now I've decided to take Neal's version of my original runWiki and use it to host a site for a civic group in the town of Ashland, Massachusetts where I live. It went live last weekend to coincide with the annual Ashland Day faire. Check it out at http://www.weloveashland.com

It's a pretty simple site which will get more sophisticated as we go. The beautiful thing is that it acts as a vehicle for producing runWiki3. I can customize it to my hearts content since I have all the source code in BASIC, the people's language. ;-)

Free version of Run BASIC

One thing that has been lacking in our effort to promote our Run BASIC web programming system is a free version. In fact there is no time limited trial either. This has been mostly because we have been unsure what would be the best way to do it.

What we've decided on is when Run BASIC v1.0.1 is released soon for Windows, Mac and Linux we will also release a free version. This free version will be for personal use instead of being a web application server. Users of the free Run BASIC will be able to create projects and use any features of the language, but they will not be able to serve applications. This will allow them to experiment and see if Run BASIC meets their needs. If it does and hosting the application is in the cards then an upgrade to the server version is available for $59.95, or hosting service can be purchased at http://www.runbasicnet.com

Comments and suggestions are most welcome.

Out of control!

On a Java project that I work on part time we use the Eclipse IDE, which is a power tool for Java programming. Java itself gets hard to deal with once your software gets to a certain size, and Eclipse tries to do a lot of the hard work for you. Java would be unusable without such tools.

On the flipside to this, we had been using an older version of Eclipse. Ultimately we decided to upgrade to a newer version (but not the latest) because we wanted to use Subversion instead of CVS for our source code control.

One of my colleages decided to attack the upgrade and document what was needed for everyone to use the new version. It seemed like it took him many days to figure it all out. The new version didn't look too much difference on the surface, but I kept hearing groans from him. Clearly something wasn't going well, so I went over and asked him what was the matter. His answer was simply, "I can't figure out how to do things that I used to know how to do!" The new software was getting bigger and more complicated.

There's a balance to strike when developing software. It's hard to make software easy to use while also adding new features.

Rewrite BASIC language today?

In the Usenet group alt.lang.basic there was a thread recently with the subject heading "Rewrite BASIC language today?" where the question was explored about how BASIC would be written in today's programming world.

Clearly there is a wide range of opinions in the responses. Some opted for being retro and simple. Some advocated adding commands for dealing with various things. It's good to have a discussion about these sorts of things, and this one went well. There are a lot of experienced BASIC programmers in that forum and it didn't turn into a flame war.

In my own response I wrote "BASIC needs to be simple. Adding C or Java features is a mistake for the most part. There is value in keeping things out of the language."

There needs to be a balance. Sometimes it makes good sense to add new things to a language. But as I just said... sometimes. ;-)

Commodore 64 Twenty-fifth Anniversary

Here is a YouTube video of a 90 minute presentation celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 home computer. The C64 was a groundbreaking machine and I know I'm not the only one who learned a lot from this wonderful machine and similar ones like the TRS-80, the Apple II, the Atari 800, and the TI-99/4. I programmed Commodore computers in BASIC, 6502 assembly language and Forth. Great stuff.

Go check this out for a fun romp into the past. The presentation touches on much more than just the C64. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3754836267385299753

The Definitive Guide to SQLite, a PDF Download

Notice: I'm not sure anymore that this is a legally available file, so I've pulled the link until further notice. You can still purchase the book online at http://apress.com/book/view/1590596730

Here is a link to a PDF for the book The Definitive Guide to SQLite by Mike Owens. This looks like a great resource for Run BASIC programmers. :-) The download seems to take a while, so I wonder if their fileserver is swamped. I guess this is a very popular download.

[link removed]

Followup: For those who have been unable to download the entire file. It took me a few tries, and you may even try some other browser. Safari worked better for me than IE.

Net Neutrality

I'm not an especially political person, but Net Neutrality is an important idea that deserves all of our attention. Essentially since the Internet was recently deregulated, broadband providers are now allowed to prioritize and block traffic. Imagine if suddenly you were unable to Skype your best friend in another country, or if Google became inaccessible to you. What if the online community in a message forum you came to know and love was destroyed because access to it was now impractical to certain key members? What if an online business was suddenly destroyed because they no longer received the visitor traffic they once did?

Net Neutrality is a movement to protect free and unhindered access to Internet resources.

Ethan Poole wrote an excellent article about it here:
http://www.lowter.com/article/net-neutrality/2

Think programming is too hard, or boring? Think again!

A couple of days ago I was at a Starbucks. I sat down around a large table to enjoy my coffee and a pastry. There were several other people there. I pulled out my iPhone to check my email. There was a fellow across from me with one of the new Macbook Air laptops, and a few minutes later a young man also sat down and pulled out a black Macbook. This concentration of Apple equipment made it easy for us to begin talking.

When it came to what sort of work we do, I shared about my business selling programming tools. I moved over to the fellow with the black Macbook and told him I wanted to show him my website so he could understand my business. When I showed him the Learn tab on the Run BASIC site and began to walk him through the examples the other people at the table came over to watch. As we went from simple "hello world!" to some easy graphics examples the reaction from onlookers was amazement! They clearly were not aware that programming could be so simple and cool. To them this was something way above them, and very dry.

What I took away from this is that people don't know that programming can be fun. They can do it, and years ago the average computer user did his own programming, in BASIC. Nowadays what gets promoted as programming is too hard, and it's no surprise that people don't want to do that. This is a misapplication of technology that makes things harder, and not easier.

We need to turn back the clock in this important area of programming.

iPhone SDK delayed?

It's beginning to look as though the iPhone SDK may not ship this month since Apple has been silent about it. It was supposed to ship by the end of February. Of course this doesn't really have any impact on Run BASIC since it will not use the SDK, but it will produce apps that run in the iPhone's Safari web browser.

We haven't talked much about our plans for iPhone support in Run BASIC. We should have more to say in the next month or so.

BASIC is bad because it's too easy?

A response to a recent post read, "BASIC is good, but I think it should be avoided as a first language because it pampers the programmer too much."

I won't be the first person to say that BASIC is perfect. There is no perfect language. However, to recommend that a first language should not "pamper" the beginning programmer seems to me misses the mark completely.

I'm guessing that this means that languages should force the beginner to be aware of low level details such as the type of numeric value (int, float, byte, etc.) or that the beginner should made to manage the allocation and deallocation of memory. What do these sorts of things have to do with the essense of programming? Since there are many languages which do not have these kinds of features, I can only submit that they aren't essential to programming. Therefore they are not necessary ideas to teach the beginner.

The nitty gritty details of how a computer works ARE important. These things should be taught to any serious student of computers, but they do not need to be the first thing taught. People who do not fancy themselves experts do not need to be bothered to learn them.

Easy is the quality that BASIC has, especially in the quickness of its learnability. This is almost to a fault I agree in the sense that a slightly more general and abstract language might be a little harder to warm up to but better in the long haul. However for the person who programs for fun, or who needs a light language for writing utilities or small personal applications, I think BASIC hits the mark pretty well.