I've started with Basic, some assembly (CALL-151) on my Apple ][ clone (Pravetz 8C), but as soon as I got my hands on IBM PC/XT (or AT) Turbo Pascal (the 30-40kb turbo.com) was just the right choice. It fit on one disk, there was plenty more, while a Microsoft C/C++ compiler and linker each took a whole separate disk.
The best thing I've loved were the .TPU files (but not sure whether TP4 or TP5 had them truly). There were no .h files to be included, or .lib (.a) to be added, it worked just magically well (with some limitations).
I've moved to C/C++ later simply because, well it's a stupid reason. I was writing a "File Manager" like app for DOS (just single column, not like Norton Commander, FAR or Midnight Commander), and the only function in Turbo Pascal 5.0 to move files was just renaming a file in the same folder... Had I known about inline assembly and be more brave, I would've stayed in Pascal Land (And I was already familiar with Ralph Brown's Interrupt List)... But hey, this stupid reason moved me to C/C++ as the builtin function there did it... then again, soon after that I've started using more and more inline assembly.
I love C/C++ now (especially C), and where I used to be really good at Pascal, I might have some hurdles reading pascal code today. Delphi was my last stop, and while I like it, I switched to video game development, and Pascal was not much used there (... Age Of Wonders I believe was written in some form of Pascal and possibly some other games,... Also part of Xoreax's IncrediBuild might've been, especially the part that does the C/C++ header processing, I think it was since we had issues with it, and while debugging found something pascal-ish in there, but don't remember now).
The best thing I've loved were the .TPU files (but not sure whether TP4 or TP5 had them truly). There were no .h files to be included, or .lib (.a) to be added, it worked just magically well (with some limitations).
I've moved to C/C++ later simply because, well it's a stupid reason. I was writing a "File Manager" like app for DOS (just single column, not like Norton Commander, FAR or Midnight Commander), and the only function in Turbo Pascal 5.0 to move files was just renaming a file in the same folder... Had I known about inline assembly and be more brave, I would've stayed in Pascal Land (And I was already familiar with Ralph Brown's Interrupt List)... But hey, this stupid reason moved me to C/C++ as the builtin function there did it... then again, soon after that I've started using more and more inline assembly.
I love C/C++ now (especially C), and where I used to be really good at Pascal, I might have some hurdles reading pascal code today. Delphi was my last stop, and while I like it, I switched to video game development, and Pascal was not much used there (... Age Of Wonders I believe was written in some form of Pascal and possibly some other games,... Also part of Xoreax's IncrediBuild might've been, especially the part that does the C/C++ header processing, I think it was since we had issues with it, and while debugging found something pascal-ish in there, but don't remember now).