Basic on akos.ma

Learning A New Programming Language per Year in the Age of AI

Fri, 17 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0200

People don’t really learn new programming languages every year anymore thanks to AI, so why do I stick with this activity? Call me old fashioned, but I still like to dive into a new programming language every year, no matter what, and thus here comes yet another update in my lifelong obsession to learn more and more programming languages.

Retrocomputing Emulators on Your Browser

Fri, 28 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0100

In the past I’ve been explaining how to use various emulators to run old operating systems on your Linux box; today, we’re going to use a much simpler approach: just click on a link, and run them on your browser!

Conway in Minimal BASIC

Fri, 11 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0200

Last Monday I released the 59th issue of De Programmatica Ipsum, my dear monthly magazine about code, developers, and society, and this month I talked about BASIC in all of its flavors. As part of the preparation of this issue, I dived into the world of Minimal BASIC code, the one with source code line numbers, the one that would start immediately after powering up your computer, and the one that brings endless nostalgia.

Yup, Still Learning a New Programming Language Every Year

Fri, 24 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0100

I gave an update on this lifetime activity of mine in 2006, 2007, 2011, and 2013, and here we go for 2023.

Killer Apps

Fri, 21 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0200

The D programming language lacked a “killer app” to break through. Another brilliant language suffered from this situation, objectively deserving a much better fate than the one it had; Smalltalk.

BASIC Standards

Fri, 18 Mar 2022 00:00:00 +0100

I’ve learnt lately that there are many standards for the BASIC programming language. Who woulda thunk?

Polyglot Conway

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0100

My personal project during the pandemic was Conway, a project providing implementations of Conway’s Game of Life in as many programming languages as possible.

Still Learning One Language per Year

Sun, 06 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0200

Quick update about my “one language per year” lifelong initiative:

Learning One New Language Every Year

Sat, 04 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0200

Here’s an update of the current status of my “one language per year” lifelong initiative:

Avoiding Basic Trouble

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 00:00:00 +0200

I remember that, late 2004, I was asked by my employer to evaluate the migration of a huge (huge, did I say huge?) Visual Basic 6 “classic” client-server application to an SOA-based Visual Basic .NET one. The application was a business-critical one for several customers, kind of a government ERP system, built initially in VB 3 or 4, and slowly migrated through the years to new versions of VB. Until VB.NET came out.