User Ed - The blog of Ed Price, Customer Program Manager
User Ed is a Microsoft blog written by a Customer Program Manager, Ed Price. Ed enjoys Customer Engagement, Experience Design, TechNet Wiki, and general education around Microsoft products.
Small Basic - Temporary Files
Some programs require temporary files during their execution. The files are temporary because they...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 11/02/2015
FREE SOFTWARE: Lego Mindstorms EV3 Basic for Small Basic
Using the EV3 extension for Small Basic 1.2, you can use Small Basic to program your Lego Mindstorm...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 11/02/2015
Computer Programming could change your life financially
I was reviewing this blog post from Cathy Cavanaugh: Values of Learning Programming Language in...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 11/01/2015
What languages are supported for Visual Studio Code?
What languages are supported? We thought you'd never ask!...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 10/24/2015
Program your Lego Mindstorms EV3 Robots with actual Text-Based Coding!
Using the EV3 extension for Small Basic 1.2, you can use Small Basic to program your Lego Mindstorm...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 10/24/2015
Is Visual Studio Free?
Big time! You even have multiple free options: Visual Studio Community 2015 - This is a free version...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 10/22/2015
Small Basic: Strings and Characters in Non-English Languages
Strings and Character Encodings in Non-English Languages Many of the strings you deal with are...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 09/26/2015
Small Basic Poet
Become a Small Basic poet! Paste in this program and try it out! First, copy this image and name it...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 08/22/2015
Small Basic: Text Files and Binary Files
Text Files and Binary Files To understand the difference between text files and binary files,...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 08/14/2015
Pig Latin
Pig Latin is a language game where you alter the English words. The goal is to conceal the meaning...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 08/11/2015
Small Basic: Three Ways to Validate Input
Validate Your User Input When you create a program that reads data from your user, always check the...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 08/09/2015
Small Basic: Three Loop Counters
First, let’s look at a method to create a While loop that removes root beer bottles from the...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 08/09/2015
Small Basic: Flower Anatomy Quiz
Flower Anatomy Quiz In this section, we’ll create an educational game that quizzes the player on the...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 08/03/2015
Small Basic: Prime Sieve
Prime Sieve Prime numbers have fascinated people since ancient times. The Sieve of Eratosthenes...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 08/02/2015
Small Basic: Dice Simulation
Dice Simulation If you roll a fair dice, you’ll get any number between 1 and 6. In this...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 08/02/2015
Small Basic Arrays: Empty Elements
Empty Array Elements The ability to have array elements hold empty strings can become handy in many...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 08/02/2015
Small Basic: Unconventional Indexing of Arrays
The arrays in other programming languages also start with the number 1 to identify the first element...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 08/02/2015
Small Basic Arrays: Indexing Operator
Concept: To indicate that an identifier is an array, you use the indexing operator []. For example,...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 08/02/2015
Small Basic: Infinite For Loops
Warning: Watch out for Infinite Loops! When using the general form of For loops, you’re...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 07/26/2015
Small Basic For Loops: Control Variable Warning
Although you can change the loop’s control variable in the body of the loop, we highly...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 07/26/2015
Small Basic: For Loop Diagram
Let's look at this loop: For N = 1 To 10 TextWindow.WriteLine(N + " x 9 = " + (N * 9)) EndFor Now...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 07/26/2015
Small Basic - Enter the Sentinel!!!
"The Sentinel" sounds like a super hero! Or like a big robot that chases mutants. But it's not!...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 06/13/2015
Small Basic Example - Wood Chuck: How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?
How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? Try out the program below to...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 06/11/2015
Small Basic - Example Loop
Let’s try a basic example. Type in this code: While (ans <> 13) 'Until the user answers...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 06/08/2015
Small Basic - Reading Flowcharts
If you ever find that your program is getting too complicated, then it's time to start sketching out...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 06/07/2015
Small Basic: Generating a Random Character
To generate a random character between A and Z, you can write this code: code = 64 +...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 05/30/2015
Small Basic - Numbers Triangle
A Triangle of Numbers This next example has a nested loop where the inner loop’s counter...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 05/27/2015
Small Basic - Compound Interest Example
Let’s Make Money Let's say you invested $100 in a project that yields 2% at regular periods of...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 05/25/2015
Small Basic - Multiple Nesting Levels
You can have more than two levels of nesting in Small Basic. The example in the Listing below shows...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 05/13/2015
Small Basic: Multiplication Table Example
In this example, you’ll create a program that displays the multiplication table for numbers 1...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 05/13/2015
Small Basic: Iteration Count
Take a look at this For loop: For N = i To t Step s Statement(s) EndFor i is the initial value, t is...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 05/13/2015
Small Basic - Story Games
Hello! Please post your Mad Libs style Story Games here, and we'll add it here as a gallery. Our...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 05/10/2015
Small Basic - More About MouseMove
More about MouseMove The MouseMove event reports that the mouse cursor has moved within the...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 05/03/2015
Small Basic - Special Keys: Alt & F10
Special Keys The Alt and F10 keys are special keys that have special meaning to the Windows...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 05/03/2015
Small Basic - Variables as Named Constants
Variables as Named Constants Try out the program in the Listing; it displays the phone numbers of...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 04/29/2015
Small Basic - Automatic Type Conversion
Automatic Type Conversion You’ve probably seen how to write expressions with both integers and...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 04/29/2015
Small Basic - Strongly-Typed Languages
Most professional programming languages are strongly typed. This means you have to specify the type...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 04/29/2015
DECIMALS ARE FLOATING POINT NUMBERS
An integer is a whole number with no decimal point; a floating-point number is one that has a...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 04/29/2015
Small Basic - Creating Different Variables
Variables in Small Basic are typeless, which means you don’t need to set the type of the data...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 04/27/2015
Small Basic - Combining Strings and Variables
Combining Strings and Variables Be careful when you want to display variable contents as strings!...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 04/27/2015
Algebra VS Small Basic
A key difference between Algebra and Small Basic In algebra, x = 5x–8 is an equation whose...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 04/27/2015
Small Basic - Invalid Variable Names
This Table shows some illegal variable names, along with the reason why each name’s invalid....
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 04/27/2015
Small Basic - The Dragon Game
How have you built or improved on your Dragon Game? Please leave a comment with any ideas you've had...
Author: Ed Price - MSFT Date: 04/20/2015