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Comment by continuational | Hacker News Reader

When I started out, there was DOS. It came with a command you could type in: QBASIC.

Typing this one magic word brought up an IDE, including an editor with highlighting, an interactive help system, samples, an in-editor REPL, and single-key shortcut to run the program. I can't remember if it also came with a debugger and a way to create stand-alone executable, or if that came later.

It had built in commands for drawing, input and sound, all well documented. And the UI was straightforward and intuitive.

This doesn't really exist anymore.

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> I can't remember if it also came with a debugger and a way to create stand-alone executable, or if that came later.

It didn’t, it came earlier: QBasic was (and is, it stopped being part of the default install with Win2k but is still available for current Windows OSs) a stripped down interpreter-only version of QuickBASIC, a compiled BASIC.

Windows comes with a command you can type in: powershell_ise

Typing this command brings up an IDE, including an editor with highlighting, an interactive help system, samples, an in-editor REPL, and single-key shortcut to run the program, tabs, step-through debugger, breakpoints, intellisense, snippets, extension system.

It has access to the .NET framework that C# uses such as System.Windows.Forms, System.Drawing, System.Console.Beep, System.Media.SoundPlayer, and the UI is straighforward with an editor and a console pane. Library is well enough documented if you can use MSDN website, but certainly not as simple as BASIC and SCREEN 12, LINE (10,10)-(20,20).

This does really exist, but it's deprecated despite being powerful, simple, convenient and useful. Instead the recommended path is to download and install a new PowerShell, VS Code and some VS Code extensions, to get a less integrated, more complex, not-bundled setup.

You can do the same thing if you type https://editor.p5js.org/ into your address bar ;-)

It seems like this could be a special website or something packaged with a browser like Firefox.

A plug-in or add on for the tutorial on how to make HTML/JS pages right there inside the browser.

Go back 25 years to 1997 and you'll find it. Netscape Composer was built right into the browser.

That's not quite like QBASIC was though. Making webpages is just a dim shadow of what QBASIC and controlling your computer was.

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