> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Behalf Of William T Goodall
... > I think the 'basic' part of the name in VB and RB is more about > sounding unscary to non-CS graduates than about indicating language > family trees wrt to syntax and such. As a follow-up to my brief history of the birth of Java, here's a bit about the birth of VB. Alan Cooper (www.cooper.com) developed it as "HyperCard for Windows." HyperCard, from Apple, was an effort to make programming easy for most people, through a combination of drag-and-drop interface design and highly readable code (HyperTalk). From the start, the idea behind it was to have a tool that was fairly easy to develop in, but extremely easy to learn and borrow from others' work. Cooper thought HyperCard was great and that Windows needed something similar, but also taking advantage of Windows' ability to use DLLs. The thing he and his team originally designed didn't even have BASIC in it when Bill Gates became interested. Microsoft made the decision to incorporate BASIC as the scripting language after Cooper sold it to them. Of course, Bill Gates has a warm place in his heart for BASIC. As I think I may have mentioned here previously, talking about the BASIC implementation in the Radio Shack TRS-100/Kyocera PC-8201a portable computers brings a smile to his face. I was so surprised at his reaction to my mentioning it (this was many years ago) that I asked one of the original Microsoft employees what the deal was. Simple, he said. That was the last piece of code Bill worked on. He's quite proud of what they managed to squeeze into very little memory. Nick _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
