Is there a good BASIC compiler for ubuntu?

[Michael T. Richter]

On Sun, 2006-12-03 at 17:36 -0500, Eric Dunbar wrote:

> Is Python transferrable to other operating systems?


Yes.



> It seems to me that for basic programming BASIC is an admirable
> solution. I've seem some pretty impressive programs written in BASIC,
> and, for simple data manipulation it can't be beat (if you already
> know the language).


Python kicks BASIC all over the place on any front.  Anything you can do
in BASIC can be done -- usually easier and faster -- in Python.  Many
(most?) things you can do in Python cannot be done easily in BASIC.


> Just because programming snobs don't like it doesn't mean that people
> shouldn't be using it.


Yes.  Just because people who know what they're talking about don't like
it doesn't mean that people who don't know what they're talking about
should listen to them.  I mean it's obviously only snobbery when people
point out technical superiority.  It can't ever be informed opinion.

Insert an eye-rolling icon here from your favourite IM client.


> I'm sure there are plenty of other languages out there that are now as
> easy to use as BASIC, but, the advantage to using BASIC is that if you
> learned how to program in the language 15 years ago (as I did) and you
> never needed to learn another language (I stopped at BASIC & Pascal),
> then you _still_ know how to use it.


Which dialect of BASIC?  On which platform?  There is no "BASIC" so much
as there is a certain dialect of BASIC on a certain architecture with
vague similarities from one instance to another.  Compare and contrast
this with, say, Python (or Ruby or Lua or ...) where it's pretty much
the identical language (and even a mostly-identical programming
environment) from platform to platform.  

Hell, compare GWBASIC, say, to modern BASIC dialects and then compare
Python 1.0 to the current Python.  Try to make your GWBASIC programs
work on any modern BASIC system.  Do the same for Python 1.0 on a modern
Python.  Tell me how you "never need to learn another language" with
that.


>  I've only ever seen Linux geeks extolling the virtues of Python.


Your blindness is largely meaningless to this discussion.

--
Michael T. Richter
Email: ttmrichter at gmail.com, mtr1966 at hotpop.com
MSN: ttmrichter at hotmail.com, mtr1966 at hotmail.com; YIM:
michael_richter_1966; AIM: YanJiahua1966; ICQ: 241960658; Jabber:
mtr1966 at jabber.cn
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