Simply, with QBasic specifically, you got...QBasic.
Yea, it came with a nice help system, but that help system was was a user guide and reference manual. It didn't teach you how to program. It just showed what the arguments to PRINT were. Useful, as a reference.
Outside of the TRS-80, which had a fairly large BASIC tutorial manual, the early 8-Bits had rather poor BASIC documentation. They were combined BASIC reference and user manuals, and not spectacular at either. And they certainly weren't robust computer programming tutorials by any stretch.
The simple point being is that while, yes, early computers came with BASIC, they weren't really set up for someone to actually learn how to program a computer. Anyone wanting to program the computer would need to find another book (or magazine) to learn programming. Even if that book were 101 BASIC Computer Games (which is an excellent mechanic, I learned a lot typing in BASIC programs).
Every computer today comes with a web browser, a web browser that can take them to any of a long list of sites where they can start coding immediately -- whether in Javascript, or even many other languages. If anything, of course, the problem is that the web is "too big", the menu "too large" and an unguided novice can get lost in vast array of choices. I actually pity some poor soul typing "learn javascript" into Google alone.
But, truth is, today, there are even few of those. Few are learning this stuff in a vacuum today.
The modern web is hardly a barrier to someone interested in programming today. The available resources are endless.
QBasic was a wonderful tool. It was beautiful and useful. A very elegant early IDE. Head and shoulders above GWBASIC/BASICA. But, still, stand alone it was incomplete.
Yep, I taught myself to program on a TRS-80 Color Computer in the early 1980s using only the included manuals for Extended Color BASIC. Then I taught myself 6809 assembler with Radio Shack's EdtAsm+ ROM cartridge and included manual plus a 6809 quick reference card I got free from Motorola.
That led to a lifelong successful career as a programmer and software entrepreneur with no formal schooling in programming, tech or business. In theory, all the info for free on the web should make it even easier to self-teach and bootstrap your way into the industry but I'm not sure it does in practice. Maybe only having one available path to self-instruct was somehow more effective?
Simply, with QBasic specifically, you got...QBasic.
Yea, it came with a nice help system, but that help system was was a user guide and reference manual. It didn't teach you how to program. It just showed what the arguments to PRINT were. Useful, as a reference.
Outside of the TRS-80, which had a fairly large BASIC tutorial manual, the early 8-Bits had rather poor BASIC documentation. They were combined BASIC reference and user manuals, and not spectacular at either. And they certainly weren't robust computer programming tutorials by any stretch.
The simple point being is that while, yes, early computers came with BASIC, they weren't really set up for someone to actually learn how to program a computer. Anyone wanting to program the computer would need to find another book (or magazine) to learn programming. Even if that book were 101 BASIC Computer Games (which is an excellent mechanic, I learned a lot typing in BASIC programs).
Every computer today comes with a web browser, a web browser that can take them to any of a long list of sites where they can start coding immediately -- whether in Javascript, or even many other languages. If anything, of course, the problem is that the web is "too big", the menu "too large" and an unguided novice can get lost in vast array of choices. I actually pity some poor soul typing "learn javascript" into Google alone.
But, truth is, today, there are even few of those. Few are learning this stuff in a vacuum today.
The modern web is hardly a barrier to someone interested in programming today. The available resources are endless.
QBasic was a wonderful tool. It was beautiful and useful. A very elegant early IDE. Head and shoulders above GWBASIC/BASICA. But, still, stand alone it was incomplete.