Basic Considered Harmful

EwDijkstra on the early forms of BasicLanguage and one of his tongue-in-cheek attacks on AnyLanguageWhichIsNotAlgol:

"It is practically impossible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: As potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration."

From "How do we tell truths that might hurt?" written on the 18th April 1975, a copy of which can be found at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/ewd498.html

See also GotoConsideredHarmful