BASIC is the first language I ever learnt, back on the Spectrum during the 80's around the age of 6 or 7 (so around 1989/90 :P). By the time I was at high school I was used to the BASIC on several different machines including the BBC and Amstrad, and I think it is for this reason I will always have some residual fondness for it despite I've long since moved on. The name BASIC stands for Beginners All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code which is why for a long time it has been a way of introducing people to programming as it is a fairly high level language (which means it is closer to English than a low level language such as Assembly). These days I think a lot of people are introduced more directly with JavaScript, PHP or sometimes even Microsoft's VisualBasic.NET which does have some left overs from it's ancient beginnings.

Even as an instructional language, BASIC sucks. It lacks support for things like higher-order operations that prevent from being used in the more advanced CS courses. Also, Microsoft should be smacked for using this sorry excuse for a language as the basis for VB. It's yet another example of how they reinforce mediocrity.

Although great in the 80's and early 90's, BASIC has absolutly no purpose in modern computer programming. No longer is it a good learning language (as Delphi and Visual Basic beat it there) and it most definatly can't be used for any major application development.