A86: Re: [OT] RE: A TI compiler - Why not?

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A86: Re: [OT] RE: A TI compiler - Why not?


> > If one desires to learn asm, and puts enough work
> > into it, they can learn it.  If not, they should
> > stick to basic.
>
>   What? The hard way or nothing? Is it the way you
>   think? It's like someone else said, sure there's
>   out there many people with good ideas but 'no
>   means' (which may be just no time to master asm).
>   Besides programming, there is "IDEAS". Programing
>   can be see just as a "means" to do stuf (like
>   games).

For the calc, I do.  There's just not room (imho) for an intermediate
language.  When you can make a game like Bomber Bloke in 10-15k if coded in
asm, why settle for anything less?  If you want to write in C or another
high level language, then you should consider writing for the PC or another
platform.  When writing asm, you will still probably have to write several
utilities on the PC anyway.

>   BASIC is drastically different from asm. This can
>   be a good reason why BASIC programmers have so
>   much difficulty making the transition. Maybe an
>   intermediate language, along with the other
>   advantages, could help a lot in making the
>   transition.
>   And remember you can always use asm in an
>   compiled language (for the most critical stuff).

I think the reason is not that basic is so different (it is), but the fact
that basic isn't really a programming language.  This comes down to terms,
and it's a wide and debated area.  Is clicking and dragging controls in
Visual Basic and writing a few lines of code really programming?  What about
the scripting in MS Office, or how about a spread sheet?  Where do you draw
the line on programming?

I consider programming doing something that imitiates the processes that go
on inside a computer.  Programming in basic is more like writing scripts
(where the focus is on doing a task) rather than writing code (where the
focus is on manipulating a computer).  A young high school/middle school
student that has only programmed in basic isn't going to understand half the
concepts in asm, on the average.  How many basic-only programmers understand
the concept of memory?  Pointers?  Memory?  This is where the hard part is,
I believe.
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