Am I wasting my time learning Pascal?

From: Sm704 (sm7040_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 03/27/05 

Date: 27 Mar 2005 02:43:11 -0800

I recently became interested in learning how to program, and I have
chosen Turbo Pascal as the language to start with. The only kind of
"programming" experience I have is writing complex scripts utilizing
the mIRC Scripting language. I also mess around with HTML, but I'm not
a pro by any means.

I've been reading and experimenting with Turbo Pascal for about 2 weeks
now. So far, I seem to fully understand the basic structure and syntax.
However, I am having some difficulty completely understanding the
concept of Pointers. I imagine I will grasp pointers soon enough,
though. I mean, it has only been two weeks...

I was wondering if I made a bad choice by choosing Turbo Pascal as my
first programming language. I've read many articles and usenet posts
about how Pascal is usally the first programming language taught to
students and beginner programmers, but these are old articles I'm
reading. Do those statements still apply in today's programming world?
Turbo Pascal seems a little outdated, and information about it is
getting more difficult to find on the internet.

Should I have chosen to learn standard C instead of Turbo Pascal? I
just hope all these days of staying up untill 6:00 AM reading about
Pascal pays off...