A new BASIC programming language

I, like many other programmers, first learned to write computer code with some variation of BASIC. To be precise - I wrote my first programs in TI-Basic during algebra class and then graduated onto Visual Basic my freshman year of high school. I found QBASIC somewhere in the midst of that before moving onto Python.

It's weird to me that a lot people learn what I believe to be much harder programming languages. JavaScript, while ubiquitous, has at least 4 ways to make a new function and as many ways to define a new variable. Bring in pattern-matching, and suddenly it's tough to keep track of all the braces.

So, I'd like to bring BASIC back (though, to be fair, it never actually left).

https://github.com/jdan/basic2020

FUNCTION factorial(N)
  IF N = 1
    RETURN 1
  ELSE
    RETURN N * factorial (N - 1)
  END
END

PRINT(FACTORIAL(20))

I want a language with incredibly Simple syntax and the ability to quickly and natively create Command-line programs, Drawing programs and Web programs.

Later on, I want to allow others to make different types of program templates (for things outside of command-line and web that I haven't thought about!) and Editor integrations.

The complete grammar can be found on GitHub

variables

X <- 10
Y <- X + 5

control flow

IF X - Y > 0
  MAX <- X
ELSE
  MAX <- Y
END

functions

FUNCTION factorial(N)
  IF N = 1
    RETURN 1
  ELSE
    RETURN N * factorial (N - 1)
  END
END

The Preamble with contain:

COMMAND LINE PROGRAM

PRINT

PRINT "Hello, world!"

INPUT

X <- INPUT
Y <- INPUT "Enter your age:"

MENU

MENU [
  "Enter a new student" ENTER_STUDENT
  "Change a student" MODIFY_STUDENT
  "Help" DISPLAY_HELP
]

KEYBOARD CONTROLS

I've begun adding syntax highlighting

But... wow this is hard stuff.

{
  "match": "\\b([A-Za-z][A-Za-z0-9\\$_]*)\\s*(<-)",
  "captures": {
    "0": {
      "name": "variable.basic2020"
    },
    "1": {
      "name": "keyword.operator.assignment.basic2020"
    }
  }
}

I've been using Microsoft's JavaScript.tmLanguage as inspiration and it is hard to comprehend that this is the best way to do this.