You could absolutely write professional software in BASIC.
As a kid I wrote my first "professional" product in Applesoft. My family used to rent videotapes (Betamax!) from a little video shop on the corner. They kept records of who rented what on paper cards -- they literally wrote in the customer name and phone # on a paper card and put it in a box. They would go through that box each day and see what was overdue, calling the customer to remind them to return. I was a curious kid so I asked the owner "how do you keep track of everything? Do you really go through all those cards every day to see what is due? Does anything get lost?" I told the owner "I can put all this on a computer and make it so you'll never lose track of who has what" and he said "tell you what, you create that and I'll buy it!"
I wrote a little program in Applesoft basic, using a light pen, that could keep track of the customers and video titles -- what was available, what was out, what was due, and what was overdue. The owner LOVED it! Customers had a "membership" card with a bar code on it.The clerk just had to scan the member card, a barcode for "checkout" (taped to the side of the screen) and then the bar code on the tape. No keyboard. Happy beep meant success. Check-in was the same process. And once a day they could check the "overdue" screen to see who to contact. The customer name, phone number, and name of movie was right there.
They weren't crazy about entering the names of all the tapes and sticking the bar code stickers on them, but once complete business was so much easier & faster.
It took me the better part of the summer to write this and I was paid $200 (a fortune for a 12 year old kid!) and given "free movie rentals for life." The owner was good to his word, and even after he bought a movie rental franchise many years later (maybe Blockbuster?) my family still enjoyed free rentals though the apple 2 was long since retired.
As a kid I wrote my first "professional" product in Applesoft. My family used to rent videotapes (Betamax!) from a little video shop on the corner. They kept records of who rented what on paper cards -- they literally wrote in the customer name and phone # on a paper card and put it in a box. They would go through that box each day and see what was overdue, calling the customer to remind them to return. I was a curious kid so I asked the owner "how do you keep track of everything? Do you really go through all those cards every day to see what is due? Does anything get lost?" I told the owner "I can put all this on a computer and make it so you'll never lose track of who has what" and he said "tell you what, you create that and I'll buy it!"
I wrote a little program in Applesoft basic, using a light pen, that could keep track of the customers and video titles -- what was available, what was out, what was due, and what was overdue. The owner LOVED it! Customers had a "membership" card with a bar code on it.The clerk just had to scan the member card, a barcode for "checkout" (taped to the side of the screen) and then the bar code on the tape. No keyboard. Happy beep meant success. Check-in was the same process. And once a day they could check the "overdue" screen to see who to contact. The customer name, phone number, and name of movie was right there.
They weren't crazy about entering the names of all the tapes and sticking the bar code stickers on them, but once complete business was so much easier & faster.
It took me the better part of the summer to write this and I was paid $200 (a fortune for a 12 year old kid!) and given "free movie rentals for life." The owner was good to his word, and even after he bought a movie rental franchise many years later (maybe Blockbuster?) my family still enjoyed free rentals though the apple 2 was long since retired.