BASIC as implented by Microsoft for the Apple II and the TRS 80 (among others) is simply the worst programming language I have ever encountered. Assembler was better - at least you had recursion with assembler.
Basic has progressed much since you last looked at it, time to update your facts. Basic has recursion, it compiles to native code, it has objects, can be event driven and everything else you would expect of a language.
Computing changes too fast to allow you to think you know it all. Keep up to date granddad.
However what basic doesn't have is a portable language definition. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
