[fpc-pascal] Maybe a new fpc book :)

[Anthony W. Henry]

I recently responded to a question on the community board
asking about an fpc book by recommending a Turbo Pascal
book by Jeff Duntemann.  His book started me out as a Pascal
programmer in 1989 and I still find these old books useful from
time to time.  

   I have two by him:
        Turbo Pascal from Square One 
        The Complete Borland Pascal

  Mr. Duntemann has also written other programming books and
was employed by Borland for a while as a technical writer.  I have
found his books to be the best available for learning Pascal.  

  When I responded to the board question it started a train of 
thought that resulted me in contacting Mr. Duntemann about writing
a book on FPC.   To my (pleased) surprise I found him provisionally
enthusiastic for the project.(He hasn't made his mind up yet). 

He has the following questions for the community. 
                POSTED WITH HIS PERMISSION.
                
                1. What OS is most-used for Free Pascal? Windows? Linux?
                
                2. What libraries do most people use for console (i.e.,
                "terminal" or text-mode) apps? I dislike ncurses; is
                there a better way?
                
                3. Does anybody really use Free Pascal to write Win32
                apps?
                
                4. Do people make heavy use of Free Pascal objects?
                
                These are important questions, because I want to bring
                newcomers up to speed with the tools and OSes they're
                most likely to use as they get better.
                
                I will probably release the rewritten book as a free
                ebook, and offer printed copies of the book through
                Lulu.com, where I publish a number of other things now.
                See:
                
                http://www.lulu.com/copperwood
                
                I don't expect to make much money on the project; I made
                my money on the book back in 1993 when it was first run.
                I love Pascal and would like to see my book still
                available to Pascal people.