Re: Is delphi a good introduction to programming?

Alf Christophersen wrote:
> On Mon, 02 May 2005 10:12:08 GMT, "Paul Dunn"
> <paul.dunn4@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> To that end, he has a copy of a BASIC interpreter I wrote installed
>> on his PC. He can't do any fancy "windowsy" things with it, but he
>> is learning program flow and structure. Eventually, he will be able
>> to jump to Delphi, but not before he has the basics under his belt.
>
> If you want to teach him a bunch of goto's and other spaghetti-alike
> structures, go on letting him learn Basic. He will never known to
> write ever any structured program, just jumps here and there.

I dread to think how you'd cope with Assembly if you think that GOTOs
produce spaghetti code. You CALL everything?

> Using Pascal or Delphi, you may learn the art of structured
> programming from scratch, but, it has a steeper learning curve at
> beginning.

And it's that learning curve's steepness that will put him off. It's all
very well just starting in delphi and playing with it like it's a paintbox,
but when you've got a form with 40 identical buttons on it and then realise
that you need to write 40 event handlers that are all almost identical, it's
no fun. People don't start with the knowledge that they can create things in
code, and link many handlers to one event. I know, I've seen it done.

Delphi is great fun, and the early versions were great for true rapid
development, but they certainly weren't aimed at beginners.

D.


.

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