| As soon as I discovered procedures on the BBC micro I vowed I'd never use a GOSUB again. Procedures are a bit like subroutines, except more powerful and versatile. But after I had played with procedures for a while, I discovered functions - multi-line ones at that - and began to wonder why BBC Basic bothered with GOSUB at all. I suppose that if they had not implemented GOSUBs then it would not have been compatible with other versions of Basic - but who defines what is standard? It is my contention that procedures and functions would more than compensate for the loss of GOSUBs and would allow a bit of space within the 16k which Basic occupies to put in the WHILE ... ENDWHILE structure we were lead to expect would be implemented.
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| This article is featured in Qercus 280 together with a piece from Paul
Beverley about writing for Acorn User back in the early 80s. The original article is shown in full here in AP Online. Qercus 280 includes
a modified version in a modern setting. Try typing in the listings on a BBC B
like the one used by Paul - or on a modern RISC OS machine. |
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