MY EARLIER POST ON THE “GEEK SHORTAGE” causes reader John Lunde to write:

This is something I foresaw when home computers quit being shipped with BASIC: <10 PRINT "HELLO"> seduced a generation. When finding out if programming is interesting costs a couple of hundred dollars up front (and weighs seven pounds), though, not many will try. Not that it has to be BASIC, of course, but there ought to be some ‘easy’ language supplied with home computers to inveigle potential geeks.

Excellent point. Computer sellers out there — including BASIC on stuff you sell wouldn’t cost much, and would be a big public service. Snap Circuits can’t do it all. (Related item here).

UPDATE: Reader Scott Atchley writes:

Please no BASIC. There are languages that do not need a compiler that are available for free download such as Perl, Python, Ruby, Java, etc. These come standard on non-Windows computers (MacOSX, Linux, etc.) and are available for Windows.

I did not mention Fortran which looks like BASIC without line numbers but you need a compiler which adds complexity and potentially cost.

I remember BASIC fondly, but then it was actually the most advanced computer language I ever learned — can you say FORTRAN and COBOL? It would be nice, though, if entry-level computers, at least, had a prominently available introductory programming language; it can be whatever those crazy kids are using these days . . . .