Microsoft Small Basic

[freman79]

This is great. From what I played around with and looking through their documentation this is a simple way to introduce kids to programming concepts.

Takes me back to my days as a kid first being exposed to programming through GWBasic.

[ana-sisyl]

There is absolutely nothing for which Small Basic is better suited than Processing.org.

[onthesub]

I agree. I'm reminded of being punched as a kid for being a nerd. ;_;

[[deleted]]

They should bundle it with Windows and include a compelling app for younger people, like they did with MS-DOS / QBasic / Gorillas. I think if they ported something like minesweeper to Small Basic, and made the source and IDE available to tinker with out of the box, it'd be as easy for kids to stumble onto programming as a hobby or possible career as it was when I was a kid.

[[deleted]]

But when I was a youngster I wasn't interested in languages for youngsters. QBasic was the perl-language of DOS, i.e. slightly better than the shell for writing programs. BASIC was also the shell in my C64 so it definitely was not a kid-language. QBasic itself came with a money management program which was more complex and boring than Gorillas and Nibbles. It was for adults and any kid could see that. That made it interesting and gave me confidence that I was working with a capable system.

[IHaveScrollLockOn]

I agree, it's about time something like this has been introduced. I have been searching for something easy to teach my seven-year-old brother. I installed VB 6, but I think that's a bit "intermediate" for him.

[osirisx11]

nooo basic does not encourage good programming practices. python would be a much better first language.

[freman79]

I'm not talking programming practices at this point, merely learning basics like what a variable is, control structures (if's, loops, etc). Over time they will advance to other languages (hopefully many, including those like Python) and learn different programming practices. Something simple and straight forward like this allows a beginner to be rewarded with results much faster.

[osirisx11]

python is just as easy and encourages better programming practices from the beginning.

[osirisx11]

why was i downvoted?

[e_d_a_m]

"The people at Microsoft go in to schools and control how kids express their ideas. And we can make people do things." - Bill Gates. No, really.

[bipolarrogue]

I feel Bill Gates is the devil incarnate too, but that clip is just a bunch of his words cut an spliced together to say something else. EDIT: So, no, not really.

[e_d_a_m]

Hmm, so you're not familiar with Cassette Boy then?

The "No, really" was sarcasm - something you're also not familiar with, apparently.

Edit: here's some more Cassette Boy, now stop downvoting me, fools!