Scratch is a great tool for teaching programming to young children, but what happens when kids outgrow Scratch? Among Raspberry Pi aficionados, the typical answer is to advance to using Python, which is an excellent choice. However, in honor of the 50th birthday of BASIC, I would like to suggest another programming environment: Gambas.

We would just add that BASIC is an underrated and under-appreciated programming language, that often can be easily understood and utilized by people who just don’t seem to “get” regular programming languages. Also, if you just need a small program to do some specific task, in many cases it is much faster and easier to code it in BASIC than in any other language. One of the strengths of BASIC is that the keywords are more mnemonic, therefore it is a better choice for people who have poor memories, and who therefore spend more time looking up the syntax of statements in other languages than doing actual programming.

Some “purists” object to BASIC for various reasons (usually spouting some nonsense about how it encourages bad coding habits, or some similarly nebulous objection) but we think the real truth of the matter is that they have done everything they can to try to bury a language that is so easy to use that almost anyone can program in it. If you are a “professional” programmer, or a teacher of computer programming, you don’t want to make it too easy for the hoi polloi to write programs, because if they can, your services might not be needed anymore!

So if you don’t already have a preferred programming language, and you’re not seeking employment as a professional programmer (or just want to get your feet wet in programming), and you’re running Linux or BSD, give Gambas a try – you might like it!

Full article here:
BASIC programming with Gambas for the beginner programmer (opensource.com)
Raspberry Pi users, also see this thread:
GAMBAS(basic) (Raspberry Pi)