Ask A Scientist© Computer Science Archive

Index Key:   COM045
Author:      james b banks
Subject:     Usefulness of BASIC.
I am a high school level computer applications and programming teacher.  The
language I work with is BASIC.  My question is, would you consider BASIC to
still be an important language to learn or has it become outdated because of
new languages that are constantly springing up?  This is an important
question because we need to know whether or not providing this program is
still truly beneficial to the students needs for the future, and whether or
not we should keep it.

Response #:  1 of 1
Author:      hawley
BASIC is definitely still useful, especially as a "first-learned" program-
ming language because it is relatively easy to learn and understand.  Any
programming language can teach the basics of programming: logic and flow
control.  It would be nice to also offer "C" to those students who wanted to
learn a language more useful in college and professionally.