For years, the lingua franca for desktop computers was the Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, a.k.a. Basic. Essentially every PC had it, and just about anyone could learn to program ...

Learning a new language is no easy task, and for programming languages, it’s no simpler. There are many reasons people want to learn to code, with some doing it ultimately to start a new career and ...

Early in BASIC's history, its creators, John Kemeny (left) and Thomas Kurtz (center) go over a program with a Dartmouth student Early in BASIC's history, its creators, John Kemeny (left) and Thomas ...

Started in '87 on an Atari ST. My first encounter with a programming language was with the infamous ST BASIC (a.k.a. The Text Adventure for BASIC-freaks). Luckily I quickly could get hands on ...

I have a specific problem that needs a solution. While it would be possible to call in someone more knowledgeable, I think this is a good pretext to actually learn some programming myself. I have a ...

Arguing about which programming language is the best one is a favorite pastime among software developers. The tricky part, of course, is defining a set of criteria for "best." With software ...

New research might widen access to learning computer programming. Source: skynesher/iStock It is routinely assumed that to be a computer programmer—to write code, in other words—you need to be good at ...

Nowadays, "basic" has a very different and derogatory Urban Dictionary-style meaning. Fifty years ago on this very day, however, it was the name given to a new computer-programming language born in a ...

BASIC creators John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz. The mainframe isn’t the only technology hitting the ripe old age of 50 this year. On May 1st, the BASIC programming language, first developed by Dartmouth ...