[Coco] C VS Basic Coco

[Francis Swygert]

From: Scott Wendt <malfunct at msn.com>

I don't want to stir up any arguments, because whatever language that gets the job done and is the one you want to use is the one you should use, but I think the things that make BASIC easy to get started with are the same ones that makes it poorly suited for complex projects.

A lot of the extra "stuff" in structured languages are there to represent program structure and does really lend to the readability and maintainability of large complex projects. For me personally brackets and indentation are super important for identifying logical blocks of code.
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I find that amusing! I've never coded in anything but CoCo BASIC, but have followed and modified some C code... with explicit directions on what to modify and where. 

I find the use of brackets and indentations MUCH more confusing than well coded BASIC with line numbers. Part of you know what you learn, I guess. Unless you really packed BASIC code, subroutines generally start with a whole number (like 500... with a "GOTO 500" to go to that routine). What's hard to find about that? I've seen some long, packed lines of BASIC code, and some packed programs that seem to just number from 1 to whatever and use every line, but those are either poorly coded or packed to get the most out of available memory. Those packed programs can be hard to follow, but once you identify the sub routines and their line number range you're pretty much done. You might want to go through that Apple BASIC program and do that first. I've not coded anything in a LONG time.. to the point I don't think I could now. But I did use some GW BASIC program as a guide to writing a complex CoCo3 program (had to do an all but total re-write, not really "converted"). I made an ASCII text listing of the GWB program and divided it up with spaces into the separate routines to make it easy to read, then tackled each routine one by one when possible (some were dependent on others and couldn't be tested separately, of course). You might try that... or use spaces and brackets to separate the listing if you find that easier to work with. I just don't understand the placement of the spaces and brackets... no misunderstanding line numbers!
 Frank Swygert
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