Programming language Pascal has been designed by Niklaus Wirth in 1970. As a foundation of this language, other one, named Algol was used (Algorithmic Language).
'Pascal' has got it's name from the French physicist, mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal (who's most known from the pressure unit - pascal in order to remember this scientist).
Turbo Pascal is not a programming language but most known code editor for programming language named 'Pascal'
Why to learn programming in it?Presently you can find a well-paid job in Pascal language environment -Delphi. Delphi and Pascal have very similar syntax and a lot of similar methods. Besides the differences you will surely understand well the typical challenges, which can have influence on optimization of your future programs (e.g. using assembler, quick copying of memory)
Many different coding languages have very similar syntax. T-SQL uses some of Pascal keywords.
A good programmer have no difficulties in learning a new language. Most hard is always the very first language. It is good practice to learn some easy one, something like Pascal
If you will learn Pascal basics well, you will better develop programs requiring high performance. You will know how to build surprising methods and be more effective.
Download and Installation
You can download Free Pascal from Internet. You don`t have to install it. You can just add shortcut to the file BP/BIN/TURBO.EXE and run it. This file will open code editor. After very first run, it is worth to set a few directory settings.
Initial Setup
Go to Options->Directories
EXE & TPU - This points to the path where compiled programs -.exe (executable files) will be created. These files can be run outside Pascal environment. This directory will serve as its default location. It is a good idea to put there files from BGI directory (Egavga.bgi and .chr fonts) if you are going to use Graph unit
Unit directories - Here should be the paths to your units -file grouping your own functions and procedures used by your programs. If you just start programming, you don`t have custom units. When you have a lot of them, it is worth to locate them in directories and add separated with semicolon to Unit directories
Default resolution in text mode is 80x25 (80 columns and 25 rows). In Options->Enviroment->Editor you can redefine it to 80x40. Then you will see more lines of code at one screen.
Saving of the settings is not automated. To keep the changes, select Options->Save turbo.tp
Keyboard Shortcuts
Keyboard shortcuts can save a lot of time. Developers rarely use mouse in order to compile their programs, change a position in the code editor. I recommend you to learn the keyboard shortcuts, which after few days will prove to be very useful in quick code writing.
Most popular shortcuts:Starting program: Run->Run (Control + F9)
Selecting piece of code Shift + Arrows
Copying of selected code Crtl + Insert
Cut of selected code Shift + Delete
Pasting Shift + Insert
Indentation to rightCtrl + K, then I
Indentation to left Ctrl + K, then U
Move to the end of line End
Move to the beginning of a line Home
Quick scroll: Page Up, Page Down
Save of file F2
Opening a file F3
