HN

Comments (13)

• ChicagoDave
  I was a pretty successful BASIC programmer, starting on DEC PDP-11 RSTS/E BASIC. Line number BASIC was good enough for simple applications, but quickly turned into spaghetti code.Later, the VAX had BASIC with functions and subroutines and dropped the line numbers and this version of BASIC was significantly better. It was procedural, but you could organize your code into modules, keeping it readable and maintainable.Eventually the non line number BASIC spread to the PC. Microsoft Professional Development System, then Visual BASIC.
• boznz
  With retirement + AI I have stopped giving a shit what programming language something is written in; If you can write it in BASIC, go for it.
• Menu

  qingcharles
  I was writing BASIC code for everything until a few years ago -- VB.NET -- until it was really clear that it had become a totally second-class citizen and I switched to C#.I still think VB.NET is vastly more readable than C/C#/Java etc.
• dang
  Recent and related:Show HN: I wrote a BASIC interpreter that boots on UEFI machines - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49410814 - Aug 2026 (44 comments)
• Menu

  MiroslavPokorny
  Basic died because it lacks scoping, and has no locals. This makes doing anything on a large scale a pain...
• segmondy
  too bad it's for win, raspberry pi, arduino, esp32, etc need this sort of stuff. lot's of hardware folks who just want to do hardware and not learn programming. they might eventually learn python or C, but BASIC would be so much better.
• Daunk
  I still enjoy and use https://blitzmax.org/
• Menu

  pcdoodle1
  Very cool. Are line numbers required? Are there plans for OS system control like setting system volume or screen brightness?
• fuzzfactor
  This looks like it's realy getting better all the time.
• _wire_
  PHP
• anon
  undefined