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Toward standardization of BASIC

We at Dartmouth are in substantial agreement with the substance of Mr. Ogdin's article in the September i issue of DATAMATION, although we might quibble with its title "The Case Against ... BASIC" and with the interspersed and out-of-context comments used by the DATAMATION editor. We certainly do not feel that BASIC has "suffered irreparable damage" or that is has "effectively been killed as an industry-wide language"; its current popularity in the educational community alone attests to the contrary. We agree with Mr. Ogdin that the current state of affairs caused by poor or divergent implementations is rapidly becoming intolerable. But surely the proper solution is to standardize BASIC, not to abandon it.