: i want to start programming recreationally. i'm busy but uber intrigued by it. i have a mac. do i need a mac friendly compiler to experiment? i know it may be useless to me, but i do believe it's personally valuable to just know it and work on it on your own if it's interesting enough. the last dumb thing i worked on was a version of king's quest. antiquated, i know, but what do i need to do to start?
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: : : I'm thinking about re-learning pascal. I haven't used it since my freshman year in high school 14 years ago. is that dumb? what use does it have today? don't know why i feel the need to do this, but i want to.
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: : Pascal still has uses, because it is much simpler to learn than C++, yet just as powerful. As seen with Delphi and FreePascal the Pascal language is still growing, and fully compatible with the 32bit operating systems of today.
: : If you don't intend to do some programming in the future, it would be a waste of time to relearn it. Otherwise it is always helpful to start as early as possible.
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You do need a mac-compatible compiler or interpreter to be able to run your code. Another way is to use a virtual machine and run your programs in there, but you still need a compiler or interpreter for that machine (unless of course that virtual machine has the interpreter built in).
