J-Walk & Associates, Inc.

Small Basic

It has nothing to do with Excel, but it's from Microsoft. It's a way for kids to learn about programming: Small Basic.

Small Basic is a project that's aimed at bringing "fun" back to programming. By providing a small and easy to learn programming language in a friendly and inviting development environment, Small Basic makes programming a breeze. Ideal for kids and adults alike, Small Basic helps beginners take the first step into the wonderful world of programming.

It's a small download, but it requires the .NET Framework 3.5. If you don't have it, then it's a BIG download and a very lengthy install.

I played around with a bit and tried some of the examples from the Small Basic Forum. The Intellisense is pretty cool. My main complaint is the very long delay between pressing F5 (Execute) and seeing the result. Maybe it's just a problem with my installation, but sometimes it took as long as 10 second before anything happened. That kind of takes the fun out of it.

- Reader Comments -

Following are comments in response to this item.
The most recent comment is at the bottom.

1. By HelpExcel.com. Comment posted 10 November, 2008 3:10pm

   I learned on a Commodore 64 & TI-99
2. By Ross. Comment posted 12 November, 2008 3:38am

   I think there are better options out there, if you want to teach your kid programing, I can think of the name now but I think theres a thing from MIT, which is very good.
   This just looks like a little version of VB to me, you might aswell just get you kid to us VB express! - There's nothing in small basic that I can see would help a kid learn or get into programing?!