all you did was write a few lines of BASIC which any C++ programmer could do with ease.
Jeremy, in my view you've missed the target by so far you've shot somebody in the stands.
It doesnt matter how hard you make programming for yourself by using complex tools (often to do a simple task).
There are people amongst every programming community who can produce good results. There are more who can achieve average results, and there's a bucket load of prople who can only write sub-par programs.
This pyramid exists on all development platforms everywhere.
The point of this post is that there are people doing excellent things in BASIC which other programmers immediately snub just because of it's BASIC origin.
Now forgive me if i'm wrong but...
...isn't the simple fact that high quality output is the domain of only the top members of each community evidence that the final quality of what we make is down to us as programmers, and not the tools we use.
I could write Hello World in C++. That doesn't make it difficult or a great game.[writeln('hello world'); if I recall].
I've seen absolute tripe - stuff I could do in 90 minutes - get patted on the back relentlessly by some snobs whilst BASIC games get ignored purely because of the icon on their .exe, and by snobs in I am referring more than anywhere else too gamedev in particular.
getting good results in BASIC isn't any easier than getting good results in C++. Either you can make a good game or your cant - the only effect the tool makes is whether you give up before you finish it or not.