[fpc-pascal] Working on a new way to educate people about pascal

[James Richters]

>>If the target audience are people that are not yet into programming, I
think the code samples might be a little too difficult ?

I have been programming with Pascal since the days of Turbo Pascal, I have
applications with hundreds of thousands of lines of code, and I also program
C++ and Python, but I honestly don't have a clue what's going on at all with
this introduction.
About the only thing I understood was the explanation of clear.button.click
The SQL monitor program example.. I have no idea what any of that means or
what it might be used for.  I don't know what SQL is, never seen it before,
and don't know why you would want to monitor it.

Threads... Sockets... etc.. those are more advanced topics.  

Introductions should be a Hello World Terminal program with maybe some
colored text... something you can follow line by line and it makes sense
even if you don't know what some unit is doing.
After the Hello World program maybe introduce procedures, and show how
repetitive things could be done with a procedure, 
Then show functions and show how a value could be returned from a function.
The introduction should be basic syntax and logic,  maybe some if then
statements or for loops... something easy to follow and understand what's
going on line by line
Then another hello world program with a message box.
Then maybe a simple form.    but threads and sockets... ok.. well I know
what threads and sockets are because I happened to use them... but to a
newbie... YIKES what are those?? and SQL??? What the heck is that anyway?
I'm not talking about a newbie.. I mean.. myself... with over 40 years of
programming experience, mostly with Pascal,  What the heck is it and why
would I need to monitor it?  
So how can I type this program in on my own computer and run it, play with
some things and see what happens?  Where am I going to find an SQL thingie
to monitor??   I don't even know what that is.
It's way too advanced of a subject for an introduction to a programming
language and honestly it doesn't make me want to try to lean it.. it's just
Poof WAY over my head. 

With a hello world program, I can type in in my own computer, change the
text,  change the color.. etc.. I can understand it.. if there's a for loop
or some variables, I can follow the logic of what's happening.
In this example, well lets see.. I see there's a timer there.. but what
starts it?  What happens when it times out?  How do I set the amount of
time? Why is there even a timer at all?  I don't know any of this.
I also could not tell you the purpose of the entire program.. I don't know
what an SQL is, what the things mean in the SQL monitor box or why SQLs
whatever they are might need to be monitored.


James