Article View: alt.folklore.computers
Article #623692Re: The birth of BASIC
From: J. Clarke
Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2018 16:13
Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2018 16:13
32 lines
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3072 bytes
On Sun, 3 Jun 2018 16:53:10 +0100, Andrew Swallow <am.sw...@btinternet.com> wrote: >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). If it's a variable number of loops you just specify the number of loops in a variable. Where recursion helps is when you don't know at the time you start the process how many branches there are going to be.
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X-Received: by 2002:a1c:9e53:: with SMTP id h80-v6mr129552wme.7.1528042426877; Sun, 03 Jun 2018 09:13:46 -0700 (PDT) X-BeenThere: alt.folklore.computers@googlegroups.com Received: by 2002:adf:e68b:: with SMTP id r11-v6ls8614877wrm.0.gmail; Sun, 03 Jun 2018 09:13:46 -0700 (PDT) X-Received: by 2002:adf:9141:: with SMTP id j59-v6mr1279843wrj.3.1528042426157; Sun, 03 Jun 2018 09:13:46 -0700 (PDT) Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!d26-v6ni18746wmb.0!nntp.google.com!goblin3!goblin1!goblin2!goblin.stu.neva.ru!newsfeed.xs4all.nl!newsfeed9.news.xs4all.nl!85.12.16.69.MISMATCH!peer02.ams1!peer.ams1.xlned.com!news.xlned.com!peer02.am4!peer.am4.highwinds-media.com!peer01.iad!feed-me.highwinds-media.com!news.highwinds-media.com!post01.iad!fx11.iad.POSTED!not-for-mail From: J. Clarke <jclarke...@gmail.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: The birth of BASIC Message-ID: <4s48hddv6f1np9mj38oakl0s5sfr1kpdnj@4ax.com> References: <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> <APydnYdsnPR4k4nGnZ2dnUU78LXNnZ2d@giganews.com> User-Agent: ForteAgent/8.00.32.1272 MIME-Version: 1.0 Lines: 32 X-Complaints-To: ab...@newsdemon.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2018 16:13:45 UTC Organization: http://www.NewsDemon.com Date: Sun, 03 Jun 2018 12:13:45 -0400 X-Received-Bytes: 2455 X-Received-Body-CRC: 2861309431 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit