Why Python is like BASIC (and why this is a good thing)

[Dan Bishop]

Piet van Oostrum <piet at cs.uu.nl> wrote in message news:<wzadu9scs2.fsf at nono.cs.uu.nl>...
> >>>>> rmunn at pobox.com (Robin Munn) (RM) writes:
> 
> RM> Reading the first few chapters of _How to Think Like a Computer
> RM> Scientist_ (http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/ for those who haven't
> RM> heard of this book), I was struck by how Python resembles BASIC in some
> RM> ways that make it a very good language for teaching:
> 
> BASIC a very good language for teaching????
> Well, it depends on what you want to teach, I guess.

Everyone should learn BASIC.  It's the perfect example of how *not* to
design a programming language :-)