Re: BASIC is still the best programming language!!!


"Richard Heathfield" <rjh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:Y92dnaP-ZY3WYUHbnZ2dnUVZ8vWdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxx

It is possible to implement a Turing machine in BASIC (or at least, as
possible as it is in languages such as Ada, C, Dylan, Erlang,
Forth...). Therefore, if it can be computed, it can be computed using
BASIC.

That point-of-view illustrates the fundamental problem. The question
is not whether one _can_ do something. The question is whether
it can be done with ease and result in a dependable solution that
is comprehensible by a reasonable standard.

One of my favorite columns, when I was writing a lot of C++ code
was in C++ Report. It was titled "Obfuscated C++." Each month
the author would present a snippet of code where the functionality
and intent were not obvious. Sometimes I could solve the problem.
Sometimes I had to write a program to see what would happen.

A programming language should be designed to discourage the
creation of such code, not to encourage or promote it. Some
problems in some languages are simply beyond the direct capability
of those languages.

You like to bash COBOL. Many years ago (early 70's) on an
inventory project, I had to compute EOQ (economic order quantity)
in a program. The EOQ formula requires a square root computation.
COBOL 68 (which I was using at that time) did not have a square
root routine. Writing one in COBOL turned out to be a challenge
-- especially writing one that was efficient. Modern COBOL has
a whole list of math functions that would have made that chore
easier.

The concern ought not to be whether some solution can be expressed
in a give language (expressibility), but how it can be expressed in that
language (expressiveness). Relying on expressibility instead
of expressiveness is the true source of the language wars. As noted
in an earlier post, we must choose the right language for the job at
hand, not shoehorn the problem space into an inappropriate solution
space.

Richard Riehle


.

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