Re:A Guided Introduction to the Free Pascal Language
by projektfu on Wednesday December 28, 2022 @10:14AM
(#34161727)
Ca. 1994 we had Pascal as the language for AP computer science. Later, they started adding other languages. In my school the options were Basic (TrueBasic) which was offered as a stepping stone to APCS and pascal. I also had the opportunity to study Scheme through CTY's excellent summer class.
At the time, I remember pascal feeling like "real programming". The programs were compiled and they operated at various levels of abstraction, from pointers up through advanced data structures and interfaces/ADTs. I didn't see Scheme as more than a toy, which was partly because the MIT Scheme implementation was just an interpreter. And I hated Basic and still do.
Pascal was great because it was pretty easy to learn and somewhat consistent. Its most annoying feature, semicolon-as-separator, was easily handled by the terrific Think pascal editor.
In its time, Pascal was a great choice. There were real-world things that you could do immediately using Think Pascal and Turbo Pascal. Making the switch to C and Unix wasn't simple but probably easier than starting with Basic. However, I was left with a bias towards wordy languages like Pascal, Ada and Modula-3 that took a while to get over :)
At the time, I remember pascal feeling like "real programming". The programs were compiled and they operated at various levels of abstraction, from pointers up through advanced data structures and interfaces/ADTs. I didn't see Scheme as more than a toy, which was partly because the MIT Scheme implementation was just an interpreter. And I hated Basic and still do.
Pascal was great because it was pretty easy to learn and somewhat consistent. Its most annoying feature, semicolon-as-separator, was easily handled by the terrific Think pascal editor.
In its time, Pascal was a great choice. There were real-world things that you could do immediately using Think Pascal and Turbo Pascal. Making the switch to C and Unix wasn't simple but probably easier than starting with Basic. However, I was left with a bias towards wordy languages like Pascal, Ada and Modula-3 that took a while to get over :)