    Ŀ 
      from the introduction to TINWHISTLE BASIC                Screen 7     
    
     FROM PAGE 6....Like  all  high-level languages, BASIC has a highly devel- 
     oped vocablary and syntax.   Without putting too fine a point on it, the 
     lines  of  a  program can be understood as sentences, the subroutines as 
     paragraphs, the whole as a self-contained and purposeful  idea.  It also 
     is  a  language  foreign to English, perhaps not as foreign as Mediaeval 
     Norwegian or Mandarin  Chinese, but foreign enough.  Its  vocabulary  is 
     not large but it has to be learned, the  spelling  and  the  punctuation 
     must  be  rigorously  observed  and the rules that govern its syntax are 
     authoritarian to an extreme.  This  does  not mean that you cannot cut a 
     corner  here  or  there or coax a function into doing what it was not de- 
     signed to do, only that like a poet composing a classical  sonnet  or  a 
     singer  hitting  that high B flat, you are constrained by the very thing 
     that you are trying to express.   
          Every program is made up of a succession of interractive statements 
     that  through  the  wizardry  of the computer are made to return a state-
     ment  of  their own.  In a loose sense, the series (A) "Harry, would you
     mind going into the kitchen and (B) see if the door is  open and (C), if
     it  is, close  it and (D) if it isn't, open the window and (E) oh, while

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