Why did Dijstra say this about Basic?

Question

Dijstra said, "It is practically impossible to teach good programming style to students that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."

What is it about Basic's syntax or structure that made him say that? Was it because it was a beginner language? I suppose the GOTO has something to do with it. What else?

Oops, meant Edsger Dijkstra. I knew I was missing a letter.

Answer 1

Edgar *Dijkstra*

Dijkstra considered programming languages using GOTO statements for program structuring purposes harmful for the productivity of the programmer as well as the quality of the resulting code ... [he] states that the overuse of GOTO is damaging and gives technical reasons why this should be so.

Article: http://www.acm.org/classics/oct95/

While the GOTO statement is often associated with BASIC, it receives no worse treatment in the piece than PL/I, COBOL or APL.

The key here is that BASIC is simply a particularly excellent example of languages that Dijkstra considers to have intrinsically harmful constructs as part of their base design.

Answer 2

I don't even know who that is, but he? has a closed minded lack of understanding. The first release of Unrealscript (the scripting language behind the Unreal Tournament series) written by Tim Sweeney (Epic's head 3D engine developer) strongly resembled basic, which obviously suggests he's got a Basic development background. And I'm sure Tim could code circles around whoever this wannabe is.

Answer 3

Heh... hadn't seen that quote.

Goto hurts. It is not strictly typed, and is interpreted, which can lead to bad habits and errors when learning. It has some features that you may never see again, like line numbers. Those are my best guesses.

Answer 4

No idea!