Salon.com Article Bemoans Demise of Line Programming (BASIC)

[Richard Gaskin]

Lynn Fredricks wrote:
> He laments the lack of availability of BASIC, but software
> preinstalled does not an education make, nor has it ever :-) 

By itself, no, but it does increase the odds of having programming tools 
in the hands of people who might take a shine to learning how to use them.

Anecdotally, it seems that when Apple bundled HyperCard for free a 
greater percentage of Mac folks taught themselves programming than any 
period before or since.

These days Apple appears to believe that JavaScript is the all-purpose 
beginner's language, and is putting the sort of effort they once put 
into evangelizing HyperCard into those silly widgets.

I predict that the accident of history that is JavaScript's popularity 
will one day be recognized as the single biggest productivity loss in 
computing history.

FWIW, I did a search in that SlashDot discussion and found no mention of 
Revolution.  Did I miss a post?

--
  Richard Gaskin
  Managing Editor, revJournal
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