Lee Tusman recreated the classic Vi editor in a few hundred lines of Yabasic, building a minimal, 80‑character‑wide text editor that can open, create, and save files, while reflecting on his artistic background, motivations, and future enhancements.
An experienced programmer shares a weekend project that builds a simplified BASIC variant, toybasic, and a three‑stage compiler written in Go—using Nex for lexical analysis, goyacc for parsing, and custom code generation—to translate BASIC programs into Go code, complete with examples and source links.
From its 1960s origins as an accessible beginner’s language to its ubiquitous presence on early home computers, BASIC paved the way for today’s Python, which the author argues has become the new BASIC for non‑programmers, despite its quirks and evolving ecosystem.
The article traces BASIC’s origins, recounts personal experiences with early BASIC dialects, and argues that Python has become the contemporary equivalent of BASIC by offering an accessible, ubiquitous, and versatile language for non‑programmers, while also acknowledging its drawbacks.
Thomas E. Kurtz, co‑creator of the beginner‑friendly BASIC language, helped democratize computing in the 1960s, and his work—from the Dartmouth Time‑Sharing System to the language’s public‑domain philosophy—laid foundations that influenced later programming languages and the rise of personal computers.
A seasoned developer recounts a decade‑long evolution from early BASIC programming on a red‑white game console through high‑school DBASE/FoxBASE+, university C/C++ projects, and Linux BBS automation, highlighting the tools, challenges, and memorable mishaps that shaped his career.
