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Classes : Basic - C Language

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Name: Dark29delx
Date: August 16, 2004 at 11:00:29 Pacific
OS: Windows XP Pro
CPU/Ram: 512 Dual Channel DDR SDRA
Comment:

Hello, I'm in high school and for junior year I plan to take both Programming basic and C language.

whats the difference between the two?

which id more useful?

is one easier than the other?

And what do these classes make you program?

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Response Number 1
Name: Chi Happens
Date: August 16, 2004 at 12:15:06 Pacific
Reply:

BASIC stands for Beginners All Symbolic Instruction Code (or something very similar to that) and it is quite easy to learn.

C (if you are talking about straight c) is a medium level language (some say high, but BASIC is high-level) that is a bit more cryptic than BASIC.

C++ which is C with Classes (classes are the foundation of OOP (object oriented programming) is slightly more difficult to learn than C, but a good foundation in C will help with the transition to c++

the main difference between C and BASIC is the Syntaz (or words that make up the programming language) for instance here is a loop (called a for loop, or for/next loop) in BASIC:

FOR X = 0 TO 9
PRINT X
NEXT X

Here is that same loop in C

for(int X=0;X<10;X++)
printf("%d",X);

as you can see they look quite different. that is because BASIC was created to mimic english moreso then most programming languages (in fact the only two programming languages more like english than BASIC are Fortran and COBOL)

the other major difference is in the structure and forgiveness of the two languages. Meaning that BASIC is an unstructured procedural language and C is more structured. In addition, BASIC is case insensitive whereas C is case sensitive.

here are examples:

BASIC:
Dim X
X = 1
x = x + 1
print X

OUTPUT:
2

C:
int X;
X = 1;
X++;
printf("%d",x); <-- throws an error (x is undefined)


Finally, BASIC is an interpreted language and C is not. This means that you can write a program in BASIC and run it, modify it, re-run it all at the same time. C must be compiled to an executable and then run. If you make changes to your C code, you will need to recompile before you can test those changes.

There are more differences, but those are probably the most significant.

Since I graduated from High School almost 2 decades ago, I don't think I have any idea what they might make you program in the current classes. In my day we would do the "Hello World", "Count to 10", "Guess A Number Between 1 and 10", and other mathimatical/logic type apps.

Hope this helps you,
Chi Happens


0

Response Number 2
Name: Dark29delx
Date: August 16, 2004 at 12:49:24 Pacific
Reply:

thanx


Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz w/ HT and 800Mhz fbs.
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Response Number 3
Name: BlueRaja
Date: August 16, 2004 at 16:03:17 Pacific
Reply:

BASIC AND C!?
My high school doesn't even offer computer science classes...
I'm jealous (and pissed).


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Response Number 4
Name: Dark29delx
Date: August 18, 2004 at 09:43:39 Pacific
Reply:

lol dont worry a lot of the peeps in my school are very ignorant when it comes to computers still :)

Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz w/ HT and 800Mhz fbs.
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