Learning programming (for Puppy)

I have just received an email from Greg, who is retired and has no computer programming background. Greg asked me for suggestions about getting into programming for Puppy, or even if it is feasible for someone with no programming knowledge.

I sent a positive reply, suggesting BaCon.

Learning from scratch, you can get going quite easily with BASIC (BaCon) and there are a lot of structured-BASIC tutorials online. If you do a search for "qbasic" or "quickbasic" you will find lots of tutorials.

Do not look for Microsoft Visual BASIC tutorials, as VB is much more different from BaCon.

Although Microsoft Qbasic is designed for MSDOS/Windows, much of the intro tutorial material will be applicable to BaCon.

Like this for example:
http://www.qbasicstation.com/index.php?c=t_beg&t=begin

You might also be able to pick up an old Qbasic book at a swap meet or secondhand bookstore.

My BaCon intro page:
http://bkhome.org/bacon/

QB64
While I was googling for "qbasic" I came across QB64. It is a successor to Qbasic, runs on both Windows and Linux:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QB64
http://www.qb64.net/

...interesting, it uses SDL to do the graphics in Linux.

Note, I am not recommending QB64 for Puppy, only mentioning it as interesting.

---

Comments

good idea


qb64
Username: Wognath
"Thanks to Greg and Barry for information on bacon and qb64. I have bacon running on Puppy 4.3.2. Bacon's commands seem awkward (possibly personal bias since years ago I used qb a lot) so I would like to get qb64 running as well. However, as a Linux beginner I'm having a hard time with libraries etc. If some kind person would post a qb64 pet, I for one would be very appreciative! I have qb64 running on a windows machine, and it's mostly compatible with my old qb programs but runs them much faster.

freebasic
Username: wognath
"Galeon has made pets for freebasic: http://wargaleon.users.sourceforge.net/repositories/puppy-linux/ It requires the devx and then works right away with Puppy 510.

Re BaCon QB, freeBASIC
Username: BarryK
"I thought that they are pretty much the same at the "basic" level. I can't see how BaCon is "awkward" compared with QB. QB has the same structured programming statements, but would have more functions due to longer history. I have used freeBASIC a little bit. It has a much longer history than BaCon, and is a hybrid, partly supporting Object Orientation programming. There is a lot more to learn perhaps if you really want to get into freeBASIC. Anyway, go for what you like best.

Tags: puppy