Re: Crippled Products and the IE Question

[dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw (Dan Strychalski)]

Tod Landis wrote --

> Well crafted modules should be fairly easy to mix and match....

An informal night course in BASIC and a short period of fiddling made
that very clear to me, hmmm... about fourteen years ago.

It is interesting to see what Microsoft has turned BASIC into since
then. No longer is it a beginner's language (B[eginner's] A[ll-purpose]
S[ymbolic] I[nstruction] C[ode], remember?), with comforting line
numbers and such, but something that looks forbiddingly like C to the
uninitiated. What is there for the interested novice to try out and
learn on? Nothing that I can see on MS systems.

I read somewhere recently that fifty percent or more of all current
professional development is in MS's mutat..., uh, version of BASIC. No
wonder the heavy-duty techies on Usenet hardly ever knock BASIC any
more. I miss their jibes -- but not nearly as much as I miss having a
real beginner's language to learn on and swap tips about with others in
the gray area between newbie and pro.

As long as MS controls the desktop, stratification of the computing
population will only get worse. We are being Balkanized....

Dan Strychalski
dski@cameonet.cameo.com.tw