VirtualUK - Slashdot User

Comment BASIC is great for kids (Score 4, Insightful) 548

by VirtualUK on Wednesday March 10, 2010 @03:37AM (#31423714) Attached to: The Value of BASIC As a First Programming Language

I disagree with the premise that BASIC teaches bad habits. I stick with the old adage a bad workman blames his tools. BASIC teaches kids (like I was over 30 years ago) from the ages of 5-6 how to put together simple logic, and gives them the very basics of languages constructs like variables, loops, sub routines, etc. without them having to grasp structures, classes, polymorphism, OO, etc. that a lot of grown ups that have been involved with writing code for quite some time can have issues with.

Comment Was Lucas right? (Score 1) 239

by VirtualUK on Friday January 15, 2010 @12:21PM (#30779844) Attached to: Dragging Telephone Numbers Into the Internet Age

Maybe names like THX-1138 aren't that far off in the future after all?

NASA Wants To Fund Space Taxis 136

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday August 11, 2009 @01:07PM from the would-you-like-a-trip-to-the-stars dept.

NASA plans on using $50 million in stimulus funds to seed development of a commercial passenger transportation service to space. Potential space taxi inventors have 45 days to submit their proposals. The proposals will be competitively evaluated and the winners will be announced by the end of September. It is unclear what other Commodore 64 games NASA plans on making a reality, but I hope Arkanoid makes the short list.

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