Me, when I started programming again in the 2010s—after a 25-year gap—I turned instead to newer languages like Python and JavaScript. Every once in a while, though, I’ll hunt down an ...

Microsoft also released Small Basic in 2008, which it says targets novice programmers, for example students who used a visual programming language like Scratch previously.

The pioneer of structured programming, Edsger Dijkstra, said in 1975, for example, that it was almost impossible to teach good programming to students who had previously come into contact with BASIC.

Kemeny and Kurtz flipped the switch on the first BASIC program on May 1, 1964, at 4AM. Not long after, they made the language available for free to the larger computing community.

When Dartmouth College launched the Basic language 50 years ago, it enabled ordinary users to write code. Millions did. But we've gone backwards since then, and most users now seem unable or ...