Introduction

Do you want to learn how to program in Pascal? Well, you've come to the right place. Here, we'll try to pass on to you the different skills needed to be a Pascal programmer, from the bare basics to the advanced techniques, this page is all you need.

About This WebPage

This page is an entire reference of all the possible things you could ever, or never, want to learn about Pascal. There is both an interactive tutorial to guide thoughout your programming path and an Almost Complete Reference to all the terms ever related to Pascal.

How to use this WebPage

Well, you could either:

Use the tutorials to guide you through the world of Pascal, or
Read through the whole Almost Complete Reference and end up going crazy.

We highly recommend that you take the first option as it is much easier, (and less boring) than the second option. (After all, the ACR was designed to be a reference, not a manual...)
When examples are given, they'll be presented in a "Type", "Run", "Analyse" system, clearly marked by these three distinctive bars:

program This_does_nuthin;

  uses
    Crt;

  begin
    { Be sure to type this the same way you see it. }
    Writeln('Wabba, wabba!');
  end.

Wabba, wabba!

The program above is the simplest example of using both comments and the Writeln statement. Ha! How's that for style, eh? This is fantastic! Long live Pascal! Long live Pascal! Notice the elegance in style! The beauty in writing! The wonder of language! How marvelous Pascal is! Marvelous, just marvelous!

As you can see from the example above, Type is the program which you will type, Run displays the output of the program, and Analyse gives an analysis of the program. This will be how all example programs are introduced.
As far as possible, references back to the manual have been avoided. Every time something new is introduced, we will try to give you an accurate, yet simple explanation without having you refer back to the manual.

Recommended Software & Hardware

We recommend the following programs for the best programming environment:

Windows 95 or NT
Turbo Pascal 7.0, and
Borland Delphi 2.0

If you don't have Turbo Pascal or Delphi 2.0, you can find out how to get them at www.borland.com, or try to get other Pascal compilers on the market.
We also recommend the following hardware for the best programming environment:

a 80486 processor or above
8MB of RAM or more
20MB of free hard disk space or more
at least a 14.4 kps modem

You don't really need to satisfy the requirements to use this page efficiently. Remember, this is the best setup, and you don't neccesarily need the best.

How this page is organized

All the lessons start from the Learning Centre, where they are branched into three groups, B, I, and A. B for Beginners, I for Intermediates, and A for Advanced.
When needed, these lessons might refer to the Almost Complete Reference for definitions of new terms and such. Select Back from your browser to continue your lesson at where you left. You can always go back to read the definition again later.
Remember, the lessons get progressively more and more complex, so we recommend that you follow the lessons in the order they were placed. This way, you won't get confused that easily.

Icons Used In This Page

These icons are used to flag important or useful information:

Stop!

Now where?

First of all, you can start your lessons immediately by selecting LC below, but if you want to explore around, go ahead. Remember, the pace, the difficulty, everything, is decided by you. So, go, and enjoy the great and mighty world of Pascal programming by your own. Relax, have fun, and enjoy yourself. Bon Voyage!

This page is ThinkQuest entry 11127.
email: tq97-11127@advanced.org