Re: The birth of BASIC

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#623691

From: Andrew Swallow
Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2018 15:53

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On 03/06/2018 16:24, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> On 03/06/2018 15:02, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>> On 02/06/2018 20:11, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
>>> On Saturday, June 2, 2018 at 12:19:34 PM UTC-4, Andrew Swallow wrote:
>>>
>>>> The writers of BASIC obviously knew FORTRAN. They chose GOTOs over 
>>>> blocks.
>>>
>>> BASIC had GOSUB.  Some BASIC's had CHAIN.
>>>
>>
>> GOSUB is a CALL statement without parameters. Although GOSUB is 
>> recursive. However having to implement variables as arrays shows how 
>> inelegant actually recursion is.
> 
> Recursion is a technique favoured by those qualified in computer
> science but never used by programmers in the real practical world.
> 

Recursion is useful when you have a variable number of loops. With a 
fixed number of loops the programmer codes them in and uses iteration. 
So the real life applications of recursion are when processing computer 
languages and bill of materials (BOM).

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<874lisvjda.fsf@usenet.ankman.de> <fnammmFl3d5U4@mid.individual.net> <pep9gi$ssu$1@dont-email.me> <877enj7cme.fsf@usenet.ankman.de> <2111hdh5qbjo4o6ot3n9cuqfgk1pqdn8ck@4ax.com> <86ad7a17-fbd3-4056-98aa-91e1b38932ce@googlegroups.com> <1778842547.549582573.514335.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org> <-8-dnaDqYe0JXo_GnZ2dnUU78bmdnZ2d@giganews.com> <68034291-0143-4693-b8fe-755df7f87322@googlegroups.com> <PcqdnYC22cafaI7GnZ2dnUU78S3NnZ2d@giganews.com> <pf1188$q8f$3@dont-email.me>

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Subject: Re: The birth of BASIC
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers
References: <874lisvjda.fsf@usenet.ankman.de> <fnammmFl3d5U4@mid.individual.net> <pep9gi$ssu$1@dont-email.me> <877enj7cme.fsf@usenet.ankman.de> <2111hdh5qbjo4o6ot3n9cuqfgk1pqdn8ck@4ax.com> <86ad7a17-fbd3-4056-98aa-91e1b38932ce@googlegroups.com> <1778842547.549582573.514335.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org> <-8-dnaDqYe0JXo_GnZ2dnUU78bmdnZ2d@giganews.com> <68034291-0143-4693-b8fe-755df7f87322@googlegroups.com> <PcqdnYC22cafaI7GnZ2dnUU78S3NnZ2d@giganews.com> <pf1188$q8f$3@dont-email.me>
From: Andrew Swallow <am.sw...@btinternet.com>
Date: Sun, 3 Jun 2018 16:53:10 +0100
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