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Small Basic for biginners












Microsoft recently introduced Small Basic, a programming language for beginners. It's a strip down version of BASIC with only 15 key words. It seems to be a fun programming environment & definitely worth while trying. You can write both console & graphical interface enabled programs & even develop your own version of Logo.
Some of the features include:
  • Its free
  • 15 key words that support basic programming concepts including conditions & iterations
  • Intellisense & context sensitive help
  • Define variables on the fly, no need to explicitly define them
  • Graphic programming
  • Subroutines
  • Third-party libraries can be plugged, API is given
It even comes with a simple but comprehensive user guide that introduce basic programming concepts & Small Basic.
Though it's intended for beginners, even advanced develops can use it to write scripts that perform simple day to day tasks.

Comments

Hasala said…
Hi Dilum aiyya,

Nice to c u in the web, hope u r having fun and doing fine in Canada.

Y the microsoft Basic, they r trying 2 fools the world with their tricks, But v wont get caught, FOSS GAMBAS is much better i guess :) , but keep us posted on your news, for u taught us our first CS module so v r ever in debt to u. Wish u a very happy and succesful new year ;)
8:57 PM
Dilum Bandara said…
Thanks for the comment. I think you miss the point...
Small basic is just a beginner’s interface to programming (can't even create an executable) whereas Gambas is suppose to be a fully fledged IDE. Windows support in Gambas is not the best, which is the platform most beginners use.
We started programming with DBase, FOXBase, Pascal, & C. No GUIs at all. We were happy even if we can write a simple sorting algorithm at that time. Whereas today’s programmers want to start with GUIs that make things much harder. So it's nice to have a beginners platform. It doesn't matter whether it's from FOSS community or Microsoft. The key thing is its availability.
11:33 PM
simona said…
Hi Dilum, can you email me at simonamaloney@yahoo.com I have some questions for you. Thanks, Simona
11:59 PM
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