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Re: [Wlug] Pascal madness?

by Keith Wright

> At 09:03 PM 7/25/2002, James wrote: > I'm trying to teach myself pascal. Anyone know of any > used book stores that have a decent computer section? I > tried Another Story on Stafford St., but he didn't have > anything for pascal. I dug around to find the name of the book store near Webster square that I like. It turns out to be "Another Story" at 1145 Main St. Stafford is around the corner, so I guess that's what you meant. There are several other used book stores in town (check the phone book), but most of them have pitiful computer sections. The people who run book stores seem to be totally unqualified to distinguish timeless classics of CS from obsolete manufacturer's litter-ature. > From: "Stephen C. Daukas" <stephen(a)daukas.com> > > The question is, why Pascal? No, that was not the question. Since he asked about Pascal, I will refrain from raving on about how he should learn Algol68 and Haskell and numerical analysis and Russian (though of course he should). > Delphi does C++ too... In any event, the book for Pascal > is by Nicholas Wirth (the creator of the language). It is > a small black covered book that looks more like a journal > than a text. If memory serves, it is called something > like "Data Structures and Algorithms using Pascal." I > taught from this book some 18 years ago at BU... I liken > it to K&R on C and C++ - dense, but very useful. You may be conflating: Jensen, K. and Wirth, N. "PASCAL User Manual and Report", Springer-Verlag (1975), the main reference definition of the language, which has been published under several covers, but usually some variant of the typical Springer silver grey, with "Algorithm + Data Structures = Programs" by Wirth alone, which is an typical undergraduate data structures textbook using Pascal (or something like it) for the examples. This book would not be much use for learning Pascal. The User Manual and Report should be required reading for anyone who is at all serious about Pascal. It is indeed like the Kernighan and Ritchie book called "The C Programming Language", in that it is the definitive description of the basic language before a dozen people and corporations embraced and extended it. I don't think K&R ever wrote anything about C++, that is Stroustrup's baby (or bastard). -- Keith

Aug. 4, 2002

Wireless networking with LInksys WAP11 and WPC11

by Andy Stewart

HI all, I finally got WEP to work with this hardware ! The trick is to download the firmware update to the WAP11 wireless access point and install it. The firmware version is 1.01c and it came out just a few days ago. Now, of course, the install program only runs in Windows. I inquired about non-Windows solutions. One can use tftp to transfer the binary image to the WAP11 to do the firmware upgrade and it does work! One must first disable the WAP11 password and also disable the MAC address filter. Of course, this is totally non-supported, we support windows only, we're sorry for your inconvenience, yada, yada, yada. I'm using the orinoco{_cs} driver without problems. I tried wlan-ng but could not get it to work at all. The configuration of wlan-ng is quite confusing to me. Later, Andy -- Andy Stewart, Founder Worcester Linux Users' Group Worcester, MA USA http://www.wlug.org

Aug. 4, 2002

Laptop for Sale

by bryon3245＠netzero.com

I have a very nice IBM Thinkpad for sale: The specs are 900MHZ 256MV or RAM 20 GB hard drive DVD and 3.5 Flppy included 14.1 inch lcd Comes with power supply and is in perfect condition. If you live near wocester I can deliver. I am asking 1200 for it. Any questions feel free to as @ bryon3245(a)netzero.com Thanks -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .

Aug. 3, 2002

test #2

by Frank Sweetser

wlug test #2 for today

July 31, 2002

WLUG mailing list

by Frank Sweetser

The WLUG list should be fixed for everyone now. If anyone knows of any problems with it, feel free to email me directly. -- Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu, fs at suave.net | $ x 18 Full-time WPI Network Engineer, Part time Linux/Perl guy |

July 31, 2002

testing

by Frank Sweetser

test #1 for today

July 31, 2002

off-campus test message

by Frank Sweetser

Just another test message to make sure the list is working properly...

July 31, 2002

test message

by Frank Sweetser

There's been some issues with the new mail server setup on campus, so this is a test message to make sure it gets out... -- Frank Sweetser fs at wpi.edu, fs at suave.net | $ x 18 Full-time WPI Network Engineer, Part time Linux/Perl guy | Perl has a long tradition of working around compilers. -- Larry Wall in <199708252256.PAA00105(a)wall.org>

July 31, 2002

Re: [Wlug] Pascal madness?

by desdinova＠soupforare.net

(thanks for the other replies, I just picked one) On 26 Jul 2002 at 8:03, Doug Chamberlin wrote: > At 07/25/2002 09:03 PM (Thursday), desdinova(a)soupforare.net wrote: > >I'm trying to teach myself pascal. What with the new release of > Freepascal, >and what with Delphi6/Kylix being out, I figure I should > get something done >while I'm out pounding pavement. >Anyone know of > any used book stores that have a decent computer section? > > The Micro Center book section (in Cambridge) has probably the best > selection. Still not good, though, for Pascal books. > <SNIP about borland> My intent is to learn TP(BP), not ISO-pascal, and poke around in delphi on the way. > > All the other current open source efforts are trying for compatibility > with this de facto standard. Therefore, if you find a book on Kylix > you should do well learning about the whole group. Yeah.

July 26, 2002

Re: [Wlug] Pascal madness?

by Stephen C. Daukas

At 09:03 PM 7/25/2002, James wrote: >yeah.... >I'm trying to teach myself pascal. What with the new release of Freepascal, >and what with Delphi6/Kylix being out, I figure I should get something done >while I'm out pounding pavement. >Anyone know of any used book stores that have a decent computer section? >I tried Another Story on Stafford St., but he didn't have anything for >pascal. :( The question is, why Pascal? Delphi does C++ too (C++ Builder uses the same development environment)... In any event, the book for Pascal is by Nicholas Wirth (the creator of the language). It is a small black covered book that looks more like a journal than a text. If memory serves, it is called something like "Data Structures and Algorithms using Pascal." I taught from this book some 18 years ago at BU... I liken it to K&R on C and C++ - dense, but very useful. Having no idea what your background is, If you are interested in "tooling up" but what to do it slowly, there are some other ways to go. The two languages that top my list are Python and Java. Java is very popular and gives you all the OOP concepts you would need, and it has the advantage that it doesn't suffer from the issues C++ does (specifically, backwards compatibility with C). Having said that, it is very C/C++ like in syntax. The book for Java is "Thinking in Java" by Bruce Eckel. He also has a book under the title of "Thinking in C++". Python is interesting. Python is often used as "executable pseudocode" and, depending on what you are going after, it may be the ticket. Then again, Java on your resume will get you hired before Python will. ;-) As a total aside, you might also want to have a look at Martin Fowler's "UML Distilled". UML is very useful for programming and Martin is an expert. I know him from my days at OMG (a standards organization) where he worked on the committee that dealt with UML. A very fast talking Brit with a marvelous sense of humor. His book is the book for UML. Regards, Steve

July 26, 2002