BASIC was very practical for 8 bit machines. You didn't even need an editor, because you could just retype a line. It was also very straightforward for a complete novice (as most people were with those machines).
In any another environment, it really doesn't make sense.
True. One feature that was missed about BASIC on those early computers: you’d turn on the Apple ][ and you were greeted by the BASIC prompt and you could just start typing your program.
This was before floppy disks… you could load a program from cassette tape.
In Atari BASIC and Commodore BASIC, you didn't even need to retype a line. You could cursor up and edit it right on the screen. This saved a ton of typing.
In any another environment, it really doesn't make sense.