Easy stuff first. I'm an OSX wonk and have been a while -- I
participated in the public beta, back before the century turned, when
my PowerBook, on its first load of the nascent OS, ran through a series
of UNIX (actually Darwin, which is Apple's version of FreeBSD, which is
technically not UNIX) style command-line load instructions before
presenting me with a UI I'd seen in sccreenshots, but never actually
hacked before.
It was definitely not pre-X Mac, and it definitely needed work. If you
think X.4 is quirky, you should have seen the first version. Oy.
So if you need help there, let me know what with.
As to the BASIC question: I'll shoot you a counter-question: Why?
Assembly is the ultimate line-by-line language, but it's not
necessarily the best instruction base for showing a kid how to do
things onscreen. If you want to explore that direction, using line code
without the benefit of an IDE, consider exploring JavaScript. It gives
you the OOP the modern era expects along with options for linear
execution, and best of all it runs in a browser layer. (That's best,
because it means you can't accidentally include instructions that will,
say, format the drive.)
It's also eminently portable. The syntax is funky but it follows the C
model, which is used by Java, Perl (somewhat) and of course C++. Also,
JS is the script engine of choice for Flash, which is (sigh) considered
the pre-eminent core to use for multimedia online games, apps and so
on.
Wanting to work in BASIC to show a kid how to hack code seems a little
like trying to introduce a twelve-year-old to the wonders of having a
ham radio license by insisting he learn Morse code. Start with world
radio, then get him hooked on speaking by voice to human beings on the
other side of the planet (unless he has an Xbox), then work *backward*
to the understructure. It makes more sense pedagogically to begin with
the fun light stuff and work into details as the student requests them.
Put another way, if an eight-year-old came to you with a story he'd
just written, would you lecture him on syntax and spelling errors, or
would you rather praise his imagination and willingness to try at all?
BASIC is not necessarily the best beginning for a computer engineering
career. The fact is that code is written on a much more abstract level
now, one which blurs the line between (for instance) graphics and
interpreter commands. In your novel _Earth_ you don't make the
ludicrous suggestion that sophisticated avatars are running commands
such as "10 seek news; 20 goto 10". They will exist, but they won't be
made on the linear programming level; they will be aggregates of
pre-assembled, generic objects.
--
Warren Ockrassa, Publisher/Editor, nightwares Books
<http://books.nightwares.com/>
Current work in progress "The Seven-Year Mirror"
<http://books.nightwares.com/ockrassa/Flat_Out.pdf>
<http://books.nightwares.com/ockrassa/Storms_on_a_Flat_Placid_Sea.pdf>
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