Hello Tony!

09 May 20 17:14, you wrote to me:

If something is missing in Win for me, I simply program it ;-)

I would like to be able to get b ack to then, these days, I've been
more of a Bash script hacker. :D

Similar here ;-) Why to even bother with perl/python - if it is possible to do it in bash. Part time collegue wants to know something? grep log | awk | sed | cut and that it is. Ah, he needs that every Sunday? crontab -e... But this I do not call "programming" ;-)

But OK.

For example - recently, I needed simple sorting of movies. (parse .nfo, get genre-actors-length-etc from imbd [no api, simple GET] and create Junctions [similar to linux links] on NTFS pointing to AVI/MP4/etc. - that my wife can simply click e.g. on actors name and see what is there) I started with bash and there were many obstacles. Even that NTFS bothered me. But with Delphi? It was smooth. (I added also other links like csfd for .cz specials, to detect subtitles, detect RAR, etc. etc.) I know, there are KODI and similar things. But I needed something simple, knowing what it is doing, specific in certain fuctions.

Another example - I still remember one guy, who changed IO.SYS that time, due to the fact that his harddrive had one head failing (to skip bad sectors quickly). I know is different level, but one thing there is in common. We needed it, we did it by ourselves.

Karel

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Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: mark lewis to Charles Stephenson on Wed May 06 2020 04:29 am

tutorial program? no, i'm not aware of any... but there is this...

https://wiki.freepascal.org/Contents

and on the FP-related mailing lists i saw where someone did have some tutorial type thing they were working on for the kids in their class to help teach them programming... i don't know if that's available or not... i read it some time in the last 2 or 3 months, i think... maybe a little longer...

I did see that link and was actually going to explore that a little. I did bookmark it about a week ago while I was doing a search for any helpful links.
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Re: Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: Dan Clough to Charles Stephenson on Wed May 06 2020 08:00 am

Well, I don't know of a "program", but there are a million online
sites that you can learn from. Here's one:

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/pascal/index.htm

I'll have to check tha one out too, thanks!

There are plenty of others just a google away.

There's a TON of them, I was wondering if there was any 'good' or ones someone else used. I went to a few, some lead to spam sites. I'm still looking though.
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Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: Karel Kral to Charles Stephenson on Thu May 07 2020 09:04 pm

I'm fairly new to programming. Can someone point to a good program
to use as a tutorial to learn Pascal?

I do not want to start any flamewar. Just curios - why to learn Pascal? (nowadays).

I have a friend working on a project in Pascal. I was wanting to help. I'm a little conflicted because I was going to actually start on Python. It would be a little too much to try to learn both at the same time. From what I hear Python would be the better choice to start learning a language as a beginner than Pascal.
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On 05-11-20 07:28, Karel Kral wrote to Tony Langdon <=-

I would like to be able to get b ack to then, these days, I've been
more of a Bash script hacker. :D

Similar here ;-) Why to even bother with perl/python - if it is
possible to do it in bash. Part time collegue wants to know something? grep log | awk | sed | cut and that it is. Ah, he needs that every
Sunday? crontab -e... But this I do not call "programming" ;-)

Yeah, more scripting. :) I have actually written a remote base controller for ham radio using Hamlib, thelinkbox, a few GNU utilities (bc, sed, etc) and a heap of Bash scripting. :) Why? I didn't like any of the offerings out there, most of which required Windows on the server end at the time (I tend to run Linux there), were proprietary or lacked the platform flexibility that I wanted. My solution is very lightweight and flexible. :)

And in recent times, I added some "idiot proofing" to make it harder for me to accidentally set it up in a way that causes problem for radio users. :) It doesn't actually _stop_ me from setting up those configurations, but it does force me to pause and think, before I do so, because I have to do those riskier parts separately

etc.) I know, there are KODI and similar things. But I needed something simple, knowing what it is doing, specific in certain fuctions.

Yeah, sometimes rolling your own in Bash is a better fit. :)

Another example - I still remember one guy, who changed IO.SYS that
time, due to the fact that his harddrive had one head failing (to skip
bad sectors quickly). I know is different level, but one thing there is
in common. We needed it, we did it by ourselves.

Yep. :)


... Have you ever questioned the nature of your reality?
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On 05-07-20 21:04, Karel Kral wrote to Charles Stephenson <=-

I do not want to start any flamewar. Just curios - why to learn Pascal? (nowadays).

To which, the obvious answer is "why not?" ;)


... Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slower to become angry.
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Hello Tony!

08 May 20 13:57, you wrote to me:

I do not want to start any flamewar. Just curios - why to learn
Pascal? (nowadays).

To which, the obvious answer is "why not?" ;)

If I check news there I can see hundreds of jobs offered. None of them is like looking for Pascal Programmer.

Do take me wrong. I am big fan of Pascal (as this is nearly only thing I can do).

I just wanted to know how this happened. Imagin - OK - I new - I want to program something. How to start. <research> - and then decide for Pascal.

Karel

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Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: Karel Kral to Tony Langdon on Fri May 08 2020 08:04:01

I do not want to start any flamewar. Just curios - why to learn
Pascal? (nowadays).

To which, the obvious answer is "why not?" ;)

If I check news there I can see hundreds of jobs offered. None of
them is like looking for Pascal Programmer.

why would job advertisements have anything to do with the programming language one decides to learn?

Do take me wrong. I am big fan of Pascal (as this is nearly only

thing I can do).

:)

I just wanted to know how this happened. Imagin - OK - I new - I
want to program something. How to start. <research> - and then
decide for Pascal.

i cannot say how it happens... perhaps it has to do with one's history and exposure?

i remember moving from (line number oriented) BASIC to Pascal and ASM... the level of control and detail was great... many of the keywords were the same or similar...

the main thing i like about pascal is that it doesn't hold the gun, point it at your foot, and pull the trigger for you like some other languages do... pascal is a lot more structured than other languages... you have to define variables before you use them... this helps with typos because the compiler will flag the typo as an unknown variable... if it did like other languages, you'd have a bug that could take days/weeks to find...

ASM gave me a much deeper level of control... then the world changed and while ASM is still a thing, it isn't as much of a thing as it used to be... even so, it is still extremely handy to be able to whip up a routine in ASM when desired...


)\/(ark
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On 05-08-20 08:04, Karel Kral wrote to Tony Langdon <=-

If I check news there I can see hundreds of jobs offered. None of them
is like looking for Pascal Programmer.

And that has to do with....? (in a hobyist setting).

Do take me wrong. I am big fan of Pascal (as this is nearly only thing
I can do).

I just wanted to know how this happened. Imagin - OK - I new - I want
to program something. How to start. <research> - and then decide for Pascal.

Some of us used to do Pascal years ago and want to re-learn. :) And I don't give a rat's arse about career in this context - I will never vode for a career, no interest in doing so.


... We have normality, I repeat, we have normality. (Whatever that is.)
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Hello mark!

08 May 20 07:18, you wrote to me:

i remember moving from (line number oriented) BASIC to Pascal and
ASM... the level of control and detail was great... many of the
keywords were the same or similar...

I would say I am similar case (starting with Basic and Asm (Mons3/Gens3) on zx spectrum) and then Pascal (scale of Borland products and then Delphi). That time C++ was too "objective" for me ;-)

But I do not program in my job.

the main thing i like about pascal is that it doesn't hold the gun,
point it at your foot, and pull the trigger for you like some other languages do... pascal is a lot more structured than other

Understand your point. (I just thought about one factor and this is also to live on that.)

Somebody else said is just syntax/language. If guy could be good programmer or "not so good" - it does not matter which language he used.

I can (also) say going from asm/basic to pascal is easier. I can confirm that to orient in bash, python, perl was (maybe only for me) esier.

Karel

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Hello Tony!

08 May 20 19:47, you wrote to me:

Some of us used to do Pascal years ago and want to re-learn. :) And I don't give a rat's arse about career in this context - I will never
vode for a career, no interest in doing so.

Hobby is good.

If something is missing in Win for me, I simply program it ;-)

Karel

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On 05-09-20 07:50, Karel Kral wrote to Tony Langdon <=-

Hello Tony!

08 May 20 19:47, you wrote to me:

Some of us used to do Pascal years ago and want to re-learn. :) And I don't give a rat's arse about career in this context - I will never
vode for a career, no interest in doing so.

Hobby is good.

Yep. :)

If something is missing in Win for me, I simply program it ;-)

I would like to be able to get b ack to then, these days, I've been more of a Bash script hacker. :D


... Black holes are outa sight!
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On 05-06-20 08:00, Dan Clough wrote to Charles Stephenson <=-

Charles Stephenson wrote to All <=-

I'm fairly new to programming. Can someone point to a good
program to use as a tutorial to learn Pascal?

Well, I don't know of a "program", but there are a million online
sites that you can learn from. Here's one:

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/pascal/index.htm

Saved for future reference. :) In my case, it's relearning, as I used to be quite proficient in Pascal.


... Capt'n! The spellchecker kinna take this abuse!
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Hello Charles!

06 May 20 02:41, you wrote to All:

I'm fairly new to programming. Can someone point to a good program to
use as a tutorial to learn Pascal?

I do not want to start any flamewar. Just curios - why to learn Pascal? (nowadays).

Karel

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Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: Karel Kral to Charles Stephenson on Thu May 07 2020 21:04:42

I'm fairly new to programming. Can someone point to a good program
to use as a tutorial to learn Pascal?

I do not want to start any flamewar. Just curios - why to learn
Pascal? (nowadays).

why learn pascal? why learn C, BASIC, ASM, C++, C#, or even COBOL or FORTRAN? or maybe even some form of SQL/xBASE?

they're just languages and they do most all the same stuff... allow you to present an interface to exchange data of some type between entities...


)\/(ark
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Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: mark lewis to Karel Kral on Thu May 07 2020 04:51 pm

I do not want to start any flamewar. Just curios - why to learn
Pascal? (nowadays).

why learn pascal? why learn C, BASIC, ASM, C++, C#, or even COBOL or FORTRAN? or maybe even some form of SQL/xBASE?

they're just languages and they do most all the same stuff... allow you to present an interface to exchange data of some type between entities...

EXACTLY! :) I think if I learn Pascal, it'll be a good bridge to learning other languages.
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Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: Charles Stephenson to mark lewis on Thu May 28 2020 08:44 pm

EXACTLY! :) I think if I learn Pascal, it'll be a good bridge to learning other languages.
other languages.

When I was starting out, most of the early CS classes were taught in Pascal. Later, we moved to C. Pascal was a much simpler language for teaching computer science concepts than a lower-level language, and it's ability to easily code quick hacks in it is bested only by BASIC or another interpeted language.
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Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: Charles Stephenson to mark lewis on Thu May 28 2020 20:44:02

they're just languages and they do most all the same stuff... allow
you to present an interface to exchange data of some type between
entities...

EXACTLY! :) I think if I learn Pascal, it'll be a good bridge to
learning other languages.

yep! plus pacal teaches you structured programming which will be very helpful when learning/using other languages... especially those that don't enforce structure which leads to them holding the gun for you, pointing it at your feet, and pulling the trigger all the while trying to be helpful ;)


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On 28 May 2020 at 08:44p, Charles Stephenson pondered and said...

EXACTLY! :) I think if I learn Pascal, it'll be a good bridge to
learning other languages.

I wouldn't bother starting with Pascal.

The critical thing when learning how to program is
really learning how to think algorithmically; to that
end, Pascal is an OK language (and was pretty good
when it was introduced) but it's become dated and
there's enough minutia that one has to keep track of
that, even as simple as it is, it can be difficult
to see the forest for the trees.

I'd strongly recommend looking at a Lisp dialect,
Go, or a functional language when starting out.
Specific recommendations are Racket (a member of
the Lisp family) or Standard ML (a functional
language); Go is an imperative systems language,
but can be a bid fiddly around the edges.

Why these and not others? Because they really
influence how you think about programming. Once
you've got those down, you can look at C and an
assembly language of your choice. But your first
language will really put a strong shadow on how
you think that'll take several years to move out
from under; thus, choose wisely. A language that
started life on a CDC-6000 series mainframe in
the early 70s just doesn't take advantage of some
of the advances in the field that make learning
easier.

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Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: Kurt Weiske to Charles Stephenson on Thu May 28 2020 08:36 pm

When I was starting out, most of the early CS classes were taught in Pascal. Later, we moved to C. Pascal was a much simpler language for teaching computer science concepts than a lower-level language, and it's ability to easily code quick hacks in it is bested only by BASIC or another interpeted language.

I started the basics of Pascal in my teens, and that's why I choose Pascal over trying to learn 'C'. most that I talked to said if I could get Pascal down, it would be easier to learn other languages.

Thanks!
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Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: mark lewis to Charles Stephenson on Fri May 29 2020 09:10 am

yep! plus pacal teaches you structured programming which will be very helpful when learning/using other languages... especially those that don't enforce structure which leads to them holding the gun for you, pointing it at your feet, and pulling the trigger all the while trying to be helpful ;)

I'm going to DEF get back into it as SOON as I can. Thank you for the input! --- SBBSecho 3.11-Linux
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Re: Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: Dan Cross to Charles Stephenson on Sat May 30 2020 06:52 am

I wouldn't bother starting with Pascal.

The critical thing when learning how to program is
really learning how to think algorithmically; to that
end, Pascal is an OK language (and was pretty good
when it was introduced) but it's become dated and
there's enough minutia that one has to keep track of
that, even as simple as it is, it can be difficult
to see the forest for the trees.

'algorithmically thinking'. That was one of the key points of why I wanted to learn Pascal. I figured it would do EXACTLY what you said 'Go' would do. lay down the blueprints for other languages. I'm saving this post for future ref. This was VERY VERY helpful.

Thank you SO much.
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On 06-10-20 01:44, Charles Stephenson wrote to Kurt Weiske <=-

I started the basics of Pascal in my teens, and that's why I choose

As did I, and I was quite proficient in Pascal by the time I was 20. I was also incorporating 8086 assembler into my Pascal programs (there were a couple of ways of doing this with TP) and doing some low level DOS stuff that way.

Pascal over trying to learn 'C'. most that I talked to said if I could
get Pascal down, it would be easier to learn other languages.

Nowadays, I am at the whim of where my brain wants to go, and coding doesn't seem to be the place. I know I can do it, because I've done it before. :)


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On 10 Jun 2020 at 01:48a, Charles Stephenson pondered and said...

'algorithmically thinking'. That was one of the key points of why I
wanted to learn Pascal. I figured it would do EXACTLY what you said 'Go' would do. lay down the blueprints for other languages. I'm saving this post for future ref.

Indeed! I think that purpose is better served by
other languages these days: Racket and Go specifically
are likely to both be more illuminating than Pascal.
Pascal was a fine language for its time, but it should
be allowed to go out to pasture now.

This was VERY VERY helpful.

Thank you SO much.

Sure thing!

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On Jun 10th 8:38 am Tony Langdon said...

As did I, and I was quite proficient in Pascal by the time I was 20. I was also incorporating 8086 assembler into my Pascal programs (there were a couple of ways of doing this with TP) and doing some low level DOS stuff that way.

I remember seeing a few people doing that (actually reading about it in FidoNet YEARS ago)




On Jun 10th 8:38 am Tony Langdon said...

Nowadays, I am at the whim of where my brain wants to go, and coding doesn't seem to be the place. I know I can do it, because I've done it before. :)

I've been wanting to get into modern programming for sometime now. I've haven't had the time or mind-frame to get back into it yet. I've seen some pretty good looking online classes I've been thinking about doing too. Juts have to get my mind into it. Hard lately. Too many 'real life' issues to deal with.



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Hello Charles!

20 Jun 20 08:02, you wrote to Tony Langdon:

I remember seeing a few people doing that (actually
reading about it in FidoNet YEARS ago)

inline? I sometimes did it, that time.

btw, do you remember that virus which infected only .pas?

It was great time...

Karel

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On 06-20-20 08:02, Charles Stephenson wrote to Tony Langdon <=-

On Jun 10th 8:38 am Tony Langdon said...

As did I, and I was quite proficient in Pascal by the time I was 20. I was also incorporating 8086 assembler into my Pascal programs (there were a couple of ways of doing this with TP) and doing some low level DOS
stuff that way.

I remember seeing a few people doing that (actually reading about it in FidoNet YEARS ago)

Wasn't me, I was doing that stuff 4-5 years before I started BBSing. :)

I've been wanting to get into modern programming for sometime now. I've haven't had the time or mind-frame to get back into it yet. I've seen
some pretty good looking online classes I've been thinking about doing too. Juts have to get my mind into it. Hard lately. Too many 'real
life' issues to deal with.

I'm currently up to my ears in radio over IP systems, both analogue and digital (as in the on air interface - obviously the IP side is digital).


... Variables won`t; constants aren`t.
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Re: Pascal Tutor?
By: Karel Kral to Charles Stephenson on Sat Jun 20 2020 03:33 pm

I remember seeing a few people doing that (actually
reading about it in FidoNet YEARS ago)

inline? I sometimes did it, that time.

btw, do you remember that virus which infected only .pas?

It was great time...

That DOES sound familiar. There were some 'cool' virus' out back in the day! --- SBBSecho 3.11-Linux
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