Pascal was one of my favorites growing up too, although not my first (Basic and Logo got me started). I learned most of my hard-core programming through demos

Pascal was one of my favorites growing up too, although not my first (Basic and Logo got me started). I learned most of my hard-core programming through demos ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demo_(computer_programming) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demo_(computer_programming) ), which I did in Pascal first, and then added x86 Assembly. Demo programming not only made programming accessible and fun, it also was the first time that I actually got interested in Calculus outside of school (matrix math for 3D animations, etc)