BASIC vs Python

[Chris Angelico]

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 2:29 AM,  <humphreys404 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thursday, December 16, 2004 6:36:18 PM UTC, abisofile wrote:
>> hi
>>
>> I'm new to programming.I've try a little BASIC so I want ask since
>> Python is also interpreted lang if it's similar to BASIC.
>
> Hi.
> I want to know if SMALL basic is the same as/like python.

You're responding to something from ten years ago. You'll do better to
ask your own question on its own merits; a lot can happen in ten
years.

What's "SMALL basic"? (I found two languages of approximately that
name, one by Microsoft and the other hosted on sourceforge. And there
may be others.)

It won't be "the same as" Python; if it were, one language or the
other wouldn't exist. And "like Python" is a matter of degree and area
- Pike is very like Python in semantics, but very unlike Python in
syntax; REXX has a vaguely similar syntactic style, but extremely
different semantics; ECMAScript has a few similarities, though not
that many; etcetera. Are you familiar with some other language(s) and
wanting to learn Python, or familiar with Python and wanting to learn
this other language?

Just for reference, by the way: being interpreted is almost completely
non-significant. It's a feature of an implementation, not a language;
plus, pretty much every modern interpreted language is first compiled
into some kind of byte-code. (The only one I can think of that isn't
would be some forms of shell script or batch file; I do remember
editing batch files under DOS and having the changes happen live, not
sure if that's true under any of the modern Windowses.) There are
Python compilers (eg Cython), and I've seen C interpreters, so I think
that proves there's no real difference there :)

ChrisA