Scientific Pascal

Guide to this Book My main objective is to teach programming in Pascal to people in the hard sciences and technology, who don't have much patience with the standard textbooks with their lengthy, pedantic approach, and their many examples of no interest to scientists and engineers. Another objective is to present many both interesting and useful algorithms and programs. A secondary objective is to explain how to cope with various features of the PC hardware. Pascal really is a wonderful programming language. It is easy to learn and to remember, and it has unrivalled clarity. You get serious results in short order. How should you read this book? Maybe backwards is the answer. If you are just starting with the Borland Pascal package, you must begin with Appendix 1, The Borland Pascal Package. If you are a Pascal user already, still you should skim over Appendix 1. Appendix 2, On Programming, has material on saving programming time and on debugging that might be useful for reference. Chapter 1, Introduction to Pascal, will hardly be read by the experienced Pascal programmer (unless he or she has not used units). Chapter 2, Programming Basics, begins to sample deeper waters, and I hope everyone will find something interesting there. Chapter 3, Files, Records, Pointers, is the final chapter to concentrate on the Pascal programming language; the remaining chapters concentrate on various areas of application.

This book is a self-contained text on the Pascal programming language that will be of great interest to science and technology students, scientists, and engineers, who will appreciate the clarity and facility of Pascal. Its emphasis on scientific problems is unique. Every aspect of Pascal programming is illustrated and applied (including graphics, DOS, BIOS, and mouse programming) through hundreds of worked examples and exercises culled from the numerical analysis and algorithm literature. All of the book's programs have been tested, and they are listed in a clear, uncluttered format. The book includes a diskette with all of the program code printed in the text, answers to exercises, additional programs, and useful data files. The programs are written for the Borland Pascal compiler on the MS-DOS platform.