Learning PASCAL and BASIC

[Aignam]

Can anybody reccommend any useful resources for someone who wants to take up PASCAL and BASIC?

[Lisa Perez]

I don't know about PASCAL, but a good resource for BASIC is True BASIC: A Powerful Structured Language System by the Original Authors of BASIC, by John G. Kemeny and Thomas E. Kurtz. I used the Student Edition for Mac and found it extremely easy to follow.

[Joe Ross]

What is your purpose for learning those two languages?

[JoeXIII'007]

Originally Posted by Aignam

Can anybody reccommend any useful resources for someone who wants to take up PASCAL and BASIC?

Google Directories. You will probably have no problem finding a tutorial there. Does your school have courses on these two languages?

Originally Posted by Joe Ross

What is your purpose for learning those two languages?

He could be wanting to learn these two because they are VERY GOOD beginning programming languages. Your printf function in C is the equivalent of the PRINT function in BASIC. If, else, for, and while are functions in C that have exact roots of themselves in BASIC. Pascal is also very similar to C in structure (even though I have just started learning Pascal myself.)

[FizMan]

NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!1111

TURING!! Learn TURING!!!!!1111 BWHHARHAHR!@


But yeah, look around on the net for the plethora of references you can get on the language.

PHP Code:

While (Google == "God"){
 search ($query_string);
} 


[Aignam]

My friend actually asked me how she could learn them---she's going to be a Business major at Susquehanna, and she's looking to place out of one of the basic computer courses---the sheet read:

This exam tests you knowledge of the use of word processing software, spreadsheet software and either a procedural language (such as BASIC or PASCAL) or database software. Since you may have gained this experience with any software on any microcomputer, the test is designed to assess your suitability for exemption from the required Using Computers component of the University Core. If you do not have experience with all three of the areas above, you should not plan to take this test.

On one hand, I'm almost certain that she'll receive a test on Microsoft Access or somesuch database program, but she'd like to be prepared for BASIC and PASCAL, too.

[MrToast]

Originally Posted by Aignam

Can anybody reccommend any useful resources for someone who wants to take up PASCAL and BASIC?

Depends which kind of BASIC you're looking for. I would recommend REALbasic (www.realbasic.com). It is by far the most superior development environment I have ever used. Everything is logical, neatly organized, works for PCs and Macs (and compiles for Linux too), and just plain awesome. In addition, their tech support is wicked cool. With what other company can you have a one on one chat with the guy who writes the compiler, or the guy who does the graphics support, or the webmaster, or the syntax man, or the CEO HIMSELF?! That's right. You can with the RB people.

Good stuff.

MrToast

[Aignam]

Originally Posted by MrToast

Depends which kind of BASIC you're looking for. I would recommend REALbasic (www.realbasic.com). It is by far the most superior development environment I have ever used. Everything is logical, neatly organized, works for PCs and Macs (and compiles for Linux too), and just plain awesome. In addition, their tech support is wicked cool. With what other company can you have a one on one chat with the guy who writes the compiler, or the guy who does the graphics support, or the webmaster, or the syntax man, or the CEO HIMSELF?! That's right. You can with the RB people.

Good stuff.

MrToast

From what I've been told, it's BASIC. Just BASIC. Basic BASIC. Basically BASIC. To be basic, it's BASIC. Sorry, I'm done.

[mtrawls]

Originally Posted by Aignam

From what I've been told, it's BASIC. Just BASIC. Basic BASIC. Basically BASIC. To be basic, it's BASIC. Sorry, I'm done.

Well, basic comes in multiple flavors. There's PBASIC, wxBASIC, ... insert a billion more names, ... and QBASIC. My bet is that it is probably QBASIC, because that is Microsoft, and lots of people like/have Microsoft (for better or worse). (Actually, according to wikipedia there are pages full of dialects!)

The syntax will vary, but the programming is basically the same (no pun intended). The hard part about programming is the logic, i.e., thinking through a problem and coming up with a solution that is suitable to a computer, -- translating this into a computer language is simple. For a basic (read simple) tutorial, you might try here. As coincedence has it, I'm teaching QBASIC at a summer camp right now ... albeit to very little kids who lack typing skills and don't seem to find vector calculus obvious/intuitive (10 year olds mostly).

[Aignam]

Originally Posted by mtrawls

Well, basic comes in multiple flavors. There's PBASIC, wxBASIC, ... insert a billion more names, ... and QBASIC. My bet is that it is probably QBASIC, because that is Microsoft, and lots of people like/have Microsoft (for better or worse). (Actually, according to wikipedia there are pages full of dialects!)

The syntax will vary, but the programming is basically the same (no pun intended). The hard part about programming is the logic, i.e., thinking through a problem and coming up with a solution that is suitable to a computer, -- translating this into a computer language is simple. For a basic (read simple) tutorial, you might try here. As coincedence has it, I'm teaching QBASIC at a summer camp right now ... albeit to very little kids who lack typing skills and don't seem to find vector calculus obvious/intuitive (10 year olds mostly).

Is there just a BASIC?

[Astronouth7303]

Originally Posted by Aignam

Is there just a BASIC?

Yes, before there were OSes.

[Venkatesh]

Nobody, nobody, and did I mention nobody learns just plain "BASIC"

QBASIC makes sense, as it is a very common BASIC dialect, and can do very fearsome things if used to the limit (think DirectX Sound and OpenGL Graphics and Integral Calculus and Networking).

What many people do is learn one flavor of BASIC and then experiment with other forms. Every mainstream BASIC is very similar to every other mainstream one, with small differences around the edges.

Note, Visual Basic does not easily fit this mold. I have used Visual Basic 1.0 for DOS, and it is more like QBASIC than current VBs. However modern VBs are entirely different beasts.

[Astronouth7303]

But make Win32 apps really freakin' easy!
(I coded a web browser in 5 minutes using only one hand using VB)