Basic
14.56BASIC Programming
(From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection)
Contents |
Introduction to BASIC
BASIC was developed in 1963 at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire as a teaching language. The acronym BASIC stands for Beginner's All-Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code.
Programming Preliminaries
Anybody can write a program. A background in mathematics or science is not required. Patience, practice, and an interest in the subject matter should suffice, along with the required software and hardware.
Understanding programs can appear daunting at first, but their reliance on logical operations allow for easy learning of commands which you will commonly see in many programs.
A program itself is merely a series of commands in the order in which they are to be executed. that is to say, that the first line is the the beginning of the program!
All programs a user uses from day to day, including browsers ( internet explorer, firefox, etc) operating systems ( windows, *nix and MacOS) are all seperate sets of lines of code, which aim to fulfill tasks. the amount of code is dependent on how simple the task generally, and different types of code may be used for the advantages they give. BASIC is considered an excellent starting point for moving onto other languages, and can be useful for simple programs.
Programming Languages
Programming languages allow people to give instructions to a computer with commands that both the computer and the programmer can understand. Different programming languages use different commands and different rules for entering those commands; similar to the way people speak different words to each other with the same meaning. One person may say "hello", while another says "hola", which, although express the same thought, appear different.
Similarly other human languages, such as French and Spanish, are similar to each other, as computer programming languages can be also. Programming languages that are similar are usually referred to as related languages. Once a person learns a programming language, it is easier to then learn other programming languages especially those related to the first one, as many similarities in structure are shared between languages, especially those with a common ancestor.
The language taught here, BASIC, is easier to learn than others as its commands are similar to English and has a simple set of rules for entering them.
Beginning BASIC
Section for chapters detailing the basics of BASIC; i.e. data types, control structures...
Control Structures
Intermediate BASIC
Advanced BASIC
Further reading
Mahamahi Sri. Manoj ji will be introducing Advanced Basic Concepts
- Visual Basic Classic Wikibook
- Nystic.com -- BASIC Support Forum