Re:Most(LY Dead) Influential Programming Languages (2020)
by int_19h on Monday December 19, 2022 @05:44PM
(#34058848)
For starters, you didn't "get GOSUB if you were lucky". It dates back to the very first version of Dartmouth BASIC.
That aside, most of the limitations that you describe are applicable to BASIC as it was in 1970s (and some, like numeric-only labels and single-letter identifiers, are straight from the 60s). For example, GW-BASIC that you mention already had 40 significant characters in identifiers, WHILE loops, and single-expression user-defined functions.
I also don't recall anyone writing any serious amount of BASIC code while catering to the lowest common denominator for the sake of portability, simply because the dialects were different enough that it wasn't really feasible. Even on a single platform like DOS, going from e.g. Turbo BASIC to QBASIC required substantial changes.
That aside, most of the limitations that you describe are applicable to BASIC as it was in 1970s (and some, like numeric-only labels and single-letter identifiers, are straight from the 60s). For example, GW-BASIC that you mention already had 40 significant characters in identifiers, WHILE loops, and single-expression user-defined functions.
I also don't recall anyone writing any serious amount of BASIC code while catering to the lowest common denominator for the sake of portability, simply because the dialects were different enough that it wasn't really feasible. Even on a single platform like DOS, going from e.g. Turbo BASIC to QBASIC required substantial changes.