From: lahtonen@utu.fi   
      
   CheckWilliamOut wrote:   
   > Thanks to all who replied. I'm a beginner to Pascal--sorry for asking   
   > a "blonde" question. So why don't the tutorials tell you that?  I'm   
   > practically exhausted all the basic online tutorials, can someone tell   
   > me where to get more advanced stuff.   
      
   Did they not make you buy a textbook for this class or provide   
   lecture notes or something?   
      
   Anyway, don't be unduly discouraged. This is just one of the things   
   you have to learn. The hard way more likely than not. I recall that when   
   I took that Pascal course 20 some years ago I had a slightly related   
   problem with enumerated types and identifiers. E.g. it seemed to me that   
   it would be soooooo useful be able to do things like   
      
   type   
     color=(blue, white, red, black);   
      
   var   
     this_color:color;   
      
   and after these declaration simply   
      
     this_color:=red;   
     write(this_color);   
      
   hope that the word 'red' would appear neatly printed   
   (we had paper terminals at the time :-).   
      
   My classmates had to take their time explaining my misunderstanding   
   to me: "The strings that you use as identifiers, names of the   
   variables etc, are used just between you and the compiler. The   
   executable does not know of them, so cannot print them out. Nor does it   
   need to know of them, if you write quality code ...."   
      
   Learning Pascal (or whatever your first language is) is so much more   
   efficient in a classroom/computer class setting, because you learn from   
   your own mistakes as well as from those of the others.   
      
   If you are learning by yourself, I'm sure you can do it, but progress   
   will be somewhat slower. Also the mistakes like mine above are something   
   you are not likely to repeat when learning your next language. E.g.   
   my mistake is not particular to Pascal, it simply came from not   
   understanding what the compiler does, and what the computer does with   
   the stuff produced by the compiler.   
      
   So nowadays I write procedures like   
      
   procedure write_color(c:color);   
   begin   
     case c of   
     blue:  write('blue');   
     white: write('white');   
   ...   
     end;   
   end;   
      
   as a matter of routine. Felt clumsy at some stage, but necessary,   
   and also actually very convenient. Say, if I want to switch the output   
   to be in my native Finnish, I only need to rewrite this one procedure.   
   If I want to support several languages that can also be easily added.   
   If I wanted to do this "my original way", not only would I need to   
   rewrite the definition of this enumerated type, but I would need to   
   search thru the entire program to replace the identifiers with their   
   new counterparts. Of course, a decent compiler would help immensely,   
   as after re-enumerating the type the old identifiers would become   
   unknown to the compiler, and e.g. the line numbers would be marked   
   as errorneous (or whatever). Anyway, my point was that this kind of   
   initially unnatural things are there for a reason. And once you   
   understand the reason, you will be well placed to take advantage!   
      
   In some ways your error was similar to mine. After you have grasped   
   this, you will understand your new tool so much better.   
      
   I would love to get a copy of the   
   > Borland Turbo Pascal Manuals, but being copyrighted they're not   
   > available online (as far as I know), and being outdated, there's few   
   > people who are willing to part with them or even have them.   
   >   
      
   Probably true. But aren't the language guides/manuals mostly meant to   
   be reference books? IOW a place for a relatively experienced programmer   
   to check how this rare feature worked again, or how it works WITH THIS   
   PARTICULAR COMPILER. IOW manuals for the compiler rather than for   
   learning a language. Well, yes they can attempt to do both, but   
   my admittedly limited experience is that the language guides and manuals   
   are not very helpful, if you are learning your first language. My other   
   employer insists that I code in C and/or Matlab (I only need to do   
   relatively short snippets together with the testbench), and I might have   
   been able to pick up enough C from the on-line manuals to do well   
   enough, but yet I preferred to use the (possibly somewhat outdated)   
   textbook I bought "accidentally" fifteen years ago.   
      
   > CheckWilliamOut   
   >   
      
   Courage!   
      
   Jyrki   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)