RE: [Embedlets-dev] JBASIC

[Ted K. <tk...@ya...>]

Chris wrote:

> The idea is repugnant! A step back from the Renaissance to the dark ages!
> You are painting over a Picasso with Elvis felt art! Condemning your
> students to a life long struggle with a language impediment.

Chris, for the most part I agree with you!  

But... here is how I eventually made the decision to go with JBasic.  Earlier
this summer I finally figured out that neither BeanShell nor Jython was going
to fit on a TStik and that, if an easy-to-use interpreter was going to be made
available for EmbeddedJava devices, I was going to have to develop it myself.

After I made the decision to build an interpreter, I drove myself absolutely
nuts trying to decide which language to go with.  During this process I was
forced to keep coming back to the fact that most of the programmers in the
world today started off on some form of BASIC (like Apple BASIC, Commodore 64
and VIC 20 BASIC, TRS-80 BASIC, Microsoft BASIC, GW-BASIC, Timex Sinclair
BASIC, QBASIC and most recently VisualBasic).

Also, it is hard to escape from the fact that even today, the most popular
Embedded systems for beginners are products like BASIC Stamp, BASICX, etc.

Beyond this, during all of the "Intro to programming" classes I have taught
during the past 13 years, BASIC (QBASIC specifically) was absolutely the
hands-down easiest language to teach to beginners.  The 2 years that I tried to
teach Java to non-programming beginners were very rough and it felt like a
forced march the whole way through.

So, I finally was forced to simply go with my instincts and experience and
(after the required 'unbelievable amount of hard work'), JBasic was the result.
 As the screen shot shows, I have also made an IDE for it (which is based on
jEdit) and I must say that teaching programming to beginners is *fun* again!

After experiencing how easy it is to teach BASIC to beginning programmers
again, I am extremely confident that I made the right choice.

And, for the first time since 1999, I feel deep down that we finally have a way
to market EmbeddedJava to the Embedded systems masses.  It was such a good
feeling to be able to put a program on a TStik last week without having to use
javac and TiniConverter and now I can see a clear path for how we can approach
the huge BASICStamp, BASICX and PICBasic communities with embedded systems that
they can jack right into the net and program in an easy manner.


 
> At least you could have done it in JavaScript, a (small) step in the right
> direction.

Actually, I think that a 'huge step right to the destination' is to follow up
JBasic with a pure Java interpreter.  My thought is that a significant number
of developers are going to quickly exhaust JBasic's capabilities and then the
most logical step for them will be to learn Java.

JBasic will already have some Java syntax in it and so a move to a Java based
version of the interpreter should represent a natural progression.  They will
still be shielded from tools like TiniConverter, JemBuilder and Charade which
will allow them to focus on learning what Object Oriented programming is all
about.

Finally, the hard-core developers will certainly want to go on to learn
full-blown Java and by that time they should be ready for it.

The gentle on-ramp that I envisioned for easing Embedded developers into
Embedded Java will finally materialize and the IT support personel that I was
personally wanting to target the OutPost/Graphic Wiring Tool combination at
will be able to get started right now with OutPost/JBasic.


Ted 

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