Review of BASIC by John

== General Comments ==

== General Comments ==

- The discussion of Doctorow's story combined with the subject at hand made me think also of an idea Vernor Vinge has used repeatedly in his writing, that effective programming is based in memorization of the domain as opposed to memorization of the language - that is, it is useful to know syntax, but more important to know that somebody else wrote the function you need five years ago and all you have to do is call it from the library. I wonder how that relates to memorization of 10 Print? As is mentioned in the text, the functionality of 10 Print is more social than computational, but (particularly at the time of the C64) it is useful to have a quick trick on hand when you want to show somebody what you can do by programming a computer. 10 Print's entire code isn't any longer than a function call in most languages; is memorizing it essentially a function call to a social library?

- The discussion of Doctorow's story combined with the subject at hand made me think also of an idea Vernor Vinge has used repeatedly in his writing, that effective programming is based in memorization of the domain as opposed to memorization of the language - that is, it is useful to know syntax, but more important to know that somebody else wrote the function you need five years ago and all you have to do is call it from the library. I wonder how that relates to memorization of 10 Print? As is mentioned in the text, the functionality of 10 Print is more social than computational, but (particularly at the time of the C64) it is useful to have a quick trick on hand when you want to show somebody what you can do by programming a computer. 10 Print's entire code isn't any longer than a function call in most languages; is memorizing it essentially a function call to a social library?

- While the memorization studies are interesting, I think they need to be related a bit more to 10 Print since there are some fundamental differences between it and the code in the studies (as is mentioned). Right now the text is "This type of memorization will have certain things in common with the type done in these memorization studies..." - it would be useful to expand on "certain things" a bit more than is done in the sentence after that one.

- While the memorization studies are interesting, I think they need to be related a bit more to 10 Print since there are some fundamental differences between it and the code in the studies (as is mentioned). Right now the text is "This type of memorization will have certain things in common with the type done in these memorization studies..." - it would be useful to expand on "certain things" a bit more than is done in the sentence after that one.

- I'd like to see more on the purpose and mechanics of transmitting code via print - as is mentioned, people are not really able to relate to it today, so more explanation may be useful (if it is not done elsewhere).

- I'd like to see more on the purpose and mechanics of transmitting code via print - as is mentioned, people are not really able to relate to it today, so more explanation may be useful (if it is not done elsewhere).

- I've not read the study, but was Schneiderman looking at memorization character by character or functionally? The text says the focus is on "comprehension", which seems like a different context than 10 Print - but it may be an opportunity to discuss the variations in 10 Print that different people have remembered.

- I've not read the study, but was Schneiderman looking at memorization character by character or functionally? The text says the focus is on "comprehension", which seems like a different context than 10 Print - but it may be an opportunity to discuss the variations in 10 Print that different people have remembered.