Help! I'm a beginner... lazarus / 8-Other ---------------------------------------------------------------------- dwdsmith · 2009-03-28 14:10 I have used VisualBasic for many years as an amateur/hobbyist. I'm a complete beginner with both Pascal and Lazarus, but I really like the look of it. The on-line tutorials I've seen on Lazarus are useful as far as they go, but I need more help getting started than they seem to offer. Questions: 1) can anybody recommend a good up to date book for learning the essential Pascal language? 2) To a beginner, the Lazarus IDE is a bit inaccessible and unfathomable. Are there any other books which can help me with how Pascal is used in Lazarus, and how programs are constructed? 3) I've seen Delphi compatibility mentioned - how similar is this to Lazarus as far as usage is concerned? There seem to be plenty of books available for this, but will they help? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SteveF · 2009-03-28 20:12 Like you, I'm a relative beginner with the Lazarus environment, also coming over from Visual Basic -- especially the VBA version of Visual Basic used in MS Access, but I've used standalone VB5 & VB6 as well.  I may have a bit of an advantage in that many years ago I attended a community college class in Pascal after working in a DOS-based Basic environment.  That's mainly why I'm here; I want something that will build standalone applications, don't want to shell out the $$ for my own personal copy of VB, and I have at least some exposure to Pascal, which I find a lot easier to wrap my head around than other languages given my previous experience. Anyway, as they say somewhere here on the site, Lazarus & Free Pascal is designed to be "code compatible" with Borland Delphi (although there are differences), and when I asked a similar question it was suggested that I pick up a book on Delphi.  I found a virtually free copy of "Teach Yourself Delphi 3 in 14 Days" which, combined with my previous Pascal background, helped a lot.  I've also seen a recommendation for the "Delphi xx Unleashed" series.  Probably any good Delphi book will get you started. In addition, there's a good online reference at "www.delphibasics.co.uk".  I find the Run-time Library reference on that site particularly useful. Hope this helps out, Steve ---------------------------------------------------------------------- cd · 2009-03-28 23:32 this is what i came across while surfing wiki it seems to be the very basics of pascal language http://www.taoyue.com/tutorials/pascal/contents.html maybe that helps ---------------------------------------------------------------------- DelphiFreak · 2009-03-29 09:06 Look at the Lazarus WIKI. http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Tutorial Or in the folder "examples" of your lazarus-folder you will find some examples which might help you to get started. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mrw · 2009-08-05 22:48 I agree with the previous responders and found their suggestions very helpful. Thanks. I first used FPC's IDE to run through Taoyue's excellent tutorials.    http://www.taoyue.com/tutorials/pascal/contents.html The IDE is like Turbo Pascal from the 80's The introductory tutorial on the wiki offers a good introduction to the Lazarus IDE user interface.    http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Tutorial Next found the helpful wiki tutorial "Console Mode Pascal - using the Lazarus IDE for writing Pascal programs for text-mode operation." It bridged the transition to the brighter and cleaner Lazarus interface.    http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Console_Mode_Pascal Since I like to know what every line of code is for; I found the "magic code lines" inserted by Lazarus's IDE to handle compiler mechanics a bit distracting.   I have found Delphi books and manuals to be very helpful. They nicely round out the rather spartan Lazarus tutorials and documentation currently available. ... anyway,  having fun learning the Delphi/Lazurus favour of Pascal. PS. The Restart item/button on the Main Menu's File submenu is great for resolving lots problems caused by my inexperience. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TDelphiHobbyist · 2009-08-07 21:16 Quote from: dwdsmith on March 28, 2009, 03:10:24 pmQuestions: 1) can anybody recommend a good up to date book for learning the essential Pascal language? Get Marco Cantù's Essential Pascal at http://www.marcocantu.com/epascal/ The page advertises the book on Lulu but if you scroll down you'll find version 1 [which will be fine for you] for free. My article on the book: http://tdelphihobbyist.blogspot.com/2008/06/essential-reading- essential-pascal.html GL Dave ---------------------------------------------------------------------- mrw · 2009-08-07 21:57 TDelphiHobbyist, thank you for your excellent advice. Quote from: TDelphiHobbyist on August 07, 2009, 11:16:54 pmGet Marco Cantù's Essential Pascal at http://www.marcocantu.com/epascal/ The page advertises the book on Lulu but if you scroll down you'll find version 1 [which will be fine for you] for free. I see Marco now also provides a download link to his Essential Pascal (version 2) The English edition of Essential Pascal version 2 (release 2.01) is available for download from this site: as a PDf within a Zip file, EssentialPascal.zip (470 KB). Thanks & cheers ---------------------------------------------------------------------- jl · 2009-08-08 08:03 Quote from: dwdsmith on March 28, 2009, 03:10:24 pm3) I've seen Delphi compatibility mentioned - how similar is this to Lazarus as far as usage is concerned? There seem to be plenty of books available for this, but will they help? I'm a beginner also, and fiddled with Delphi 7 (editing the apps my freelancer wrote) for a few years.  From what I can see, at least for simple programming (if else then, case, functions, procedures), Delphi and Lazarus is actually the same thing.  Lazarus is definitely more user friendly than D7 for sure. You could convert simple Delphi example apps to lazarus if you need more examples.