[OT] - BASIC is still not a bad choice, was Re: Future of Pypy?

[Michael Torrie]

On 02/22/2015 08:30 AM, Dave Farrance wrote:
> I started work 1980ish, had an early 6502-based home computer, and my then
> place of work had some 6502-based Pet computers, so I gained the ability
> to quickly write BASIC programs as an engineering aid.  Later, when BASIC
> dropped into obscurity, I switched to C and C++, although I always found
> that cumbersome compared to the old BASIC.  Later still, when I found that
> my Google queries for code examples started returning more Python than C,
> I tried that -- and discovered that Python was like BASIC, only better.

I know BASIC is a hiss and a byword for many folks, and certainly it's
off topic here.  But modern BASIC, particarly in the form of the
FreeBASIC[1] compiler, is very much alive and well on all modern
platforms (including Windows, Mac, Linux, and Arm devices).  BASIC today
appears to be every bit as structured as any modern language.

It's relatively easy to translate C header files into FreeBASIC include
files, but it is tedious.  I would love to have a FreeBASIC translation
of the libpython header files and then I could write Python extensions
in FreeBASIC.

Back on topic, have you tried using Cython to compile python modules
that need a speedup into a binary module?

[1] http://www.freebasic.net/