Did you do multi-line statements in BASIC interactively?  Like loops?
How did it turn out?

Did you find it frustrating when you made a typo?

> Hi,
>
> From: "Chris Pine" <nemo / hellotree.com>
> >
> [...]
>
> > Finally, I remember when *I* was learning Ruby.  Simple text files were easy
> > to understand.  I found irb confusing until I understood basic programming
> > in Ruby.  Plain and simple.  I doubt if anyone learned on irb first, and I
> > imagine most people found it harder to understand when they were nubies.
>
> I learned on IRB first... If it hadn't existed I would have written it.
> (A simplified version, albeit. :)  ..... It's somewhat baffling to me
> why, in learning a language, one would deliberately eschew something so
> interactive that gives such immediate feedback like IRB.
>
> I started out in BASIC (in 1980), and it was interactive.  My next
> language was Forth... highly interactive.  From there onto C and C++,
> and I was thoroughly irked by the lack of an interactive development
> environment (profoundly different from a source level debugger.)
> When I got to Perl, I was ecstatic, 'cause one of the first things I
> realized I could write was:
>
>   perl -e "while(<>){$_=eval;print qq' => $_ $@\n'}"
>
> ... which is like a mini "IRB" for Perl... Essentially the Ruby
> equivalent of:
>
>   ruby -e "while gets; puts eval $_; end"
>
> Then on to Smalltalk, where I was again in heaven with the interactive
> development capabilities (kind of squared, in smalltalk :)
>
> Finally on to Ruby, where it's prolly not too surprising how thrilled
> I was to find IRB waiting for me...
>
> So.... I'm wondering if some of the disagreement (just jumping into
> this thread here :) might be somehow associated with personal
> preference?  Because as a beginner, in BASIC and Forth, I found the
> interactivity of those languages highly appealing in learning to
> program, and learning the language....  Almost as appealing
> [and indespensible] as I find IRB now.
>
> So if I can presume some "nubys" out there think and experiment and
> learn the way I do, I'd imagine IRB would be perfect for them as a
> learning tool (perhaps, as has been noted, with --simple-prompt :).
> ...But, I don't know what percentage of total nubys these people
> represent.
>
>
> Just pitchin in the $0.02...
>
> Regards,
>
> Bill
>
>
>
>
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