->    Allow me, please, to disagree with you a little.
-> My first programming experience was in the early 50's
-> (the subject line is OLD FOLKS!) using a main frame.
-> We did it all in machine language.  That language had
-> very little direct bearing on my learning BASIC 30
-> years later.  Or a bit of Assembler a couple of years
-> after that.
->
->    In the message just before this one, I answered a
-> question about how to tell if a certain bit was on.  I
-> answered: do it with Boolean Algebra's AND operator.
-> Now that's something I learned in machine language and
-> which applies to BASIC, Assembler, and the rest.  It
-> wouldn't matter what a person's first (computer)
-> language was, some principles will apply to all.  My
-> first language taught me Logical Thinking - which is
-> sometimes counter-intuitive.  It taught me that if a
-> routine is not working as I intended it to work, to sit
-> down with paper and pencil, pretend that _I_ am a
-> computer, and go thru the routine step by step seeing
-> exactly what the computer is seeing.  I can (usually)
-> find the problem that way.
Ah yes. Those were the days. I remember - in the mid-1960s - "writing" a
program by hand punching the machine language into paper tape...
I suspect there are a lot of people in this conference, many of them
quite competent programmers, who neither know nor care about the Boolean
AND function! It exists, but it isn't usually *thought of* as a very
important aspect of BASIC. (True, on a lower level, the "logical" AND,
as in IF X=1 AND Y=2 THEN..., is really Boolean, but most people don't
think on that level, nor do they need to.)
                           dow
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