As a motivation for this project, they point to an article in Salon, <i>Why Johnny can’t code</i> (but they use the wrong URL; it has moved to <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.salon.com&#x2F;2006&#x2F;09&#x2F;14&#x2F;basic_2&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.salon.com&#x2F;2006&#x2F;09&#x2F;14&#x2F;basic_2&#x2F;</a>).  That article says:<p>&gt; <i>The “scripting” languages that serve as entry-level tools for today’s aspiring programmers – like Perl and Python – don’t make this experience accessible to students in the same way. BASIC was close enough to the algorithm that you could actually follow the reasoning of the machine as it made choices and followed logical pathways.</i><p>I can only assume that the author hasn’t actually <i>used</i> or even <i>seen</i>, say, Python, which is often referred to as “runnable pseudocode”; meaning “the notes you wrote on how to implement your algorithm can often be copied and pasted into a Python program and run as-is”.<p>From the BASIC-256 page:<p>&gt; <i>It uses traditional control structures like gosub, for&#x2F;next, and goto, which helps kids easily see how program flow-control works.</i><p>I, myself, originally taught myself to code when I was young, using BASIC on machines with BASIC in ROM, and have typed in listings from magazines and bought expensive BASIC reference manuals, read them in detail and used the language to create many utility programs and games.  And <i>even I</i> wouldn’t wish BASIC on anyone when modern languages with features like (<i>gasp</i>) <i>functions</i> are readily available.<p>Sure, I could understand the wish for BASIC back when the alternatives were C, Pascal, Perl, LISP, FORTRAN, or Java.  But when Python exists, there is no need for BASIC.<p>(I should note that Python originally derives from a language explicitly created for teaching, called ABC.)