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Sorry to disagree...
The BASIC that came on the C64, TRS-80, Sinclair etc. had only one bad habit, the GOTO instruction!
I can't swear to the others, but you HAD to type variables in TRS-80 BASIC, and there was so little memory available that the size of every variable was important.
You had to do your own memory management too, e.g. re-use variables rather than just declaring new ones etc.
All in all it taught me a more good practice than bad.
I seem to remember that sloppy typing and variants only appeared very much later in VB?
So old that I did my first coding in octal via switches on a DEC PDP 8
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We started the same way! My first programming was switches on PDP-8s then paper tape. Disassembling Scripsit on TRS-80 to add hotkeys for Compugraphic typesetting was a fun project!
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For a person new to programming, I would recommend a simple basic. If they want to mature as a (paid) programmer, then learning languages with more rules (C, C++, C#, Java, etc.) should be next. If they only want to play around, then stay with basic. Also, some of the scripting languages seem to be going backwards and becoming less professional. It seems that Javascript and python have less rules than C and C++ and programmers are being paid to write in those languages. And, even "no code" environments are becoming popular and may be how people create their own applications.
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Basic, basic, basic all the way! Or should that be BASIC?
I learnt on Algol, then moved to Fortran, then I worked for HP in the glory days of Bill, Dave and John Young on the HP98 series of boxes in - would your believe - BASIC!
I can still type error-free basic in almost any dialect as fast as I can write English. 
Squirley brackets? Who needs 'em? 
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I started with RGB-II on the IBM mainframes back in 1974. I eventually did COBOL and CICS but was quite happy when I moved to the PC and learned BASIC as my first language. Then I moved onto Turbo Pascal for several years, which I completely enjoyed...
Steve Naidamast
Sr. Software Engineer
Black Falcon Software, Inc.
blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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HP-BASIC on the 9845 sucked big time, except for an add-on wheel (IIRC) that let you change a variable value run time; very cool for plotting graphs of transfer functions and tweaking them onscreen. I much preferred the 9825 running hpl, which let my program change its own code at run time. It drove the QA types crazy when they tried to validate my code. 
Will Rogers never met me.
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BASIC for sure ! These were cool times !
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The main point of those early computers was that Basic was integrated into the shell. This allowed the programmer to start programming without the intermediate steps of opening an editor, saving and then either compiling & running, or interpreting the program.
As far as programming languages are concerned, I would prefer something more structured, for example Pascal. I'm not sure how you'd integrate that with the shell, though.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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BASIC came on built-in ROM chips, there's nothing stopping them do PASCAL or any other language.
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The issue isn't the implementation of the language, but the integration with the shell. Pascal, for example, requires much more in the way of preliminary definitions that BASIC does (e.g. PRINT "Hello, World" is a legal BASIC statement, but Writeln("Hello, World"); requires all kinds of boilerplate).
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Not sure what boilerplate you're referring to, the examples I see online don't have any, but regardless in BASIC you constructed programs using lines so
10 print "Hello"
20 goto 10
That doesn't preclude having boilerplate code.
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I have a C64 and an equally aged BASIC manual... both a few years older than I. 
But to answer the question: BASIC.
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I never really programmed in BASIC - my soul is clean and unfettered by guilt.
That long ago, the only real language I knew was FORTRAN.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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UCSD Pascal was an integrated system, running on a variety of Z80 and 6502 based system. Pretty good system! Not too fast, using a P-code as "VM". So, one could do better than Basic
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Far, far better. I had it for my Apple ][+.
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saw this for sale on an auction site the other day. If you want to bid on it. I will pick it up and ship it to you.
or you can pay them to ship it to you.
You have to pay for it either way.
Commodre 64 Okimate | West Central Sales and Auction Co[^]
Then you can find out what you would want.
To err is human to really mess up you need a computer
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I had several year of intimate life with C64 - including burning chips and banging my head on it...
Today I user emulators when feel the urge...
"The only place where Success comes before Work is in the dictionary." Vidal Sassoon, 1928 - 2012
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Kornfeld Eliyahu Peter wrote: Today I user emulators when feel the urge...
That's probably what I should have stuck with.
A few years ago I bought the C64 Mini. Thought it was neat, played with it for a few hours (total), but it's currently gathering dust.
Then I bought an actual working C64 off of some eBay-like site. Works fine, the guy I bought it from threw in a few game disks, but my problem is the display. I can hook it up to my main monitor, but don't have the room on my desk to dedicate to it. And I'd have to buy some other display or adapter if I wanted to set it up elsewhere. So it's also gathering dust.
Then the company that made the C64 Mini made a full-sized one, with a working keyboard. I've been tempted to get it (it would solve the display connectivity issue, as it's using HDMI, like the Mini) but I suspect it'll gather dust as well.
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Patient zero: assembler.
It was only in wine that he laid down no limit for himself, but he did not allow himself to be confused by it.
― Confucian Analects: Rules of Confucius about his food
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I grew up on Input magazine [^] , spent countless hours typing hex assembly into ZX81, ZX Spectrum and C64. it certainly teaches you attention to detail. 
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Assembler - and I did way back then!
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I fell in love with computer at 12, when a friend of mine show me typing a program to get a skying game. Don't ask me why, it blowed my mind, and that's it.
Some months after, I had my ZX 48k, and started my trip to hell using basic, but as soon as I could (not that easy in Italy in 1984) I switch to Assembly.
So, today, Assembler.
I love Assembler.
Assembler.
Bye.
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If I remember well it would also run Turbo Pascal.
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basic is well... to basic
Pascal would be the only good choice off course
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I had a C64 back in the 80's and there was actually a BASIC language compiler available for it, by Abacus. It generates machine language from Basic and has extensions beyond the built in Basic.
Having been using Basic since then in many variations over the years, the language of choice for me would be Basic, but a BASIC compiler with a modern command set.
I also worked with machine code on the C64. I wrote my own compiler, which had a subset of basic but was designed for maximum speed, and I wrote it in compile Basic and it generated direct to machine language. I used my own compiler to write a family friendly video game which was published in the Compute Gazette magazine (October 1987).
I still write in Basic today using PowerBasic for Windows using the WIN32 API.
So Basic is a good language to use, but it needs to be a fast compiler, support inline assembler and have direct access to either the hardware directly or the operating system.
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