[Info-vax] Better languages than BASIC

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 1/11/2024 1:30 PM, Simon Clubley wrote:
> On 2024-01-11, Dave Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> wrote:
>> On 1/10/2024 9:28 PM, bill wrote:
>>> On 1/10/2024 7:02 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> The world has evolved.
>>>
>>> Exactly.  BASIC also evolved, but better languages have passed it by.
>>
>> I confess to curiosity.  In what ways has other languages passed by Basic?
> 
> There are multiple languages that have left BASIC in the dust.

There are a lot more languages today than 40 years ago.

And VMS Basic has not evolved with the rest of the IT world.

But VB.NET is reasonable uptodate.

> If you want an initial teaching language, Python is _absolutely_ the
> language you start people off with these days. BASIC is absolutely
> dead here, and for very good reason.

I think last time Basic was hot for teaching was around when I was
in 1st grade.

Python, Java, C# or JavaScript depending on where and what.

> If you want to write business applications, then either Java or a
> subset of C++. C++ subset to be chosen based on programmer skillsets
> and the problem to be solved.

This is a very crowded market today. There are so many options.

C++.

JVM language - Java or one of the other like Scala, Kotlin or Groovy. I
believe Groovy would be a good choice for Basic people.

.NET language - C#, VB.NET or F#. VB.NET is definitely not in fashion,
but it still exist.

Python. Yes business applications do get done in Python some time.

PHP. Many dislike PHP, but it is widely used.

JavaScript/TypeScript. Ditto.

And then there are all the not really intended for this market but
chosen anyway choices: C, Rust, Go.

> If you want a safety-critical language (for completion only, as BASIC
> was never suitable here), then something like Ada.

Ada is not so hot anymore. I believe a lot of that stuff are in C or
C++ today. One can argue that Ada is a lot better, but that does
not change reality.

> There are other areas that BASIC was never suitable for, such as
> number crunching. Depending on your requirements, knowledge, mindset,
> etc, then either stay with Fortran, or drive an analysis package from
> something like Python. There are also higher-level languages such as
> MATLAB or Octave that can be used here as well.

And R.

But Python is king in that market today.

The analysis logic is in Python. The matrix math is done
in modules in Fortran or C. The data is moved around in Java.

Arne