[Barrykgerdes]

It always amuses me the number of budding programers that run Basic in its many forms down as a programming language.

There are two parts to programming. The first part is turning an idea into a program or routine that will solve your problem. The second is to translate this into a form that can be read by a computer.

Yes if you want an interface that looks great in windows and has all the bells and whistles that pad out modern programs you need to learn one of the modern structured languages like c++. If you just want to use a computer for what it is also very good at, that is, raw calculations. Basic is the simplest of all languages to use .

Basic is a very forgiving language. You can put your sub routines anywhere, that is if you need a sub routine. You can learn about six or seven simple english commands and you can use basic to solve most of the problems you are likely to come across in science or engineering.

The biggest problem with basic now is that it won't work on modern 64 bit operating systems. That has been overcome by later forms of basic that use the old and familiar qbasic IDE to apply c++ routines.

When it comes to astronomy I have a set of routines that I can solve all the astronomical maths that I have ever needed like generating orbital parameters from sitings of solar system objects. or predicting eclipses etc. It is also great for reading files and extracting information for display in special forms or rewriting data bases in a different format. All these with quite simple easy to read program source code.

Barry

PS I use QB64(gl) these days to read my old basic source and create simple executable programs that work in windows, Linux and even on a Mac.