BASIC wasn’t designed to change the world. “We were thinking only of Dartmouth,” says Kurtz, its surviving co-creator. (Kemeny died in 1992.) “We needed a language that could be ‘taught ...

If Basic had a domain, it was as a starter language, and there are many candidates to replace it, Fisher says. “The best ‘first language’ is a hot topic of debate,” she says.

More information: Joan Arnedo-Moreno et al, Programming Fun(damentals): Using commercial video games to teach basic coding to adult learners, Entertainment Computing (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.entcom ...

But these days, only 4 percent of professional developers will admit to using BASIC. Me, when I started programming again in the 2010s—after a 25-year gap—I turned instead to newer languages ...

Functional programming, as the name implies, is about functions. While functions are part of just about every programming paradigm, including JavaScript, a functional programmer has unique ...

The BASIC programming language turns 60 Easy-to-use language that drove Apple, TRS-80, IBM, and Commodore PCs debuted in 1964.

Thomas E. Kurtz, a mathematician and inventor of the simplified computer programming language known as BASIC, which allowed students to operate early computers and eventually propelled generations ...