Hi. I just sent an email [see below] to Florian from the Free Pascal team. Then I found out about GNU Pascal, and thought this list might be another good place to ask. Any pointers to i18n or related efforts that could be of any use to us are most welcome.
TIA, I look forward to hearing from you,
N.
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Hello!
I'm involved in a project called "UBA 22" where we teach basic computer skills to inmates of local (Buenos Aires, Argentina) prisons. It's a difficult task, the penitentiary service tolerates but hardly helps us, state support is scarce, etc. At the prison where I used to teach until recently (SPF U2, "Devoto"), we had five almost-falling-apart 486s and one Pentium 1 or so, for a very high demand of students (nearly 800 interested per term, of which nearly 200 are admitted).
We teach the basics, from "what is a computer" to Windows usage, MS Office tools, etc.
During the last couple of years I've been thinking about setting up a newer, more advanced course for the few inmates who survive the 3 or 4 basic ones. I'd like to teach a very basic intro to programming. Pascal seems like a decent language for this (there are better options, but each has its own cons [no pun intended]).
Anyway, I've been looking for a compiler, but there's a big language problem -- most of our students hardly read or write in Spanish, let alone anything in English. "Begin", "While" and "For" don't mean anything to them. So my aim is to find
- a free pascal compiler for DOS, Windows and Linux on Intel hardware - which {already is || can easily be} translated to Spanish
where by "translated" I mean
- basic language keywords - basic lib elements (nothing very specific, just basic i/o, etc.) - basic compiler and linker output
More advanced / obscure stuff might very well be in English.
I can translate, I have no problem with that. But I need the right product, a license that allows for this, and any reasonably simple method in order to find the strings and replace them with Spanish equivalents.
Do you think FP [GPC] would be a good option?
Any input will be very welcome. Thanks a bunch IA & greetings from Buenos Aires.
Nicolás Rosner Departamento de Computación Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales Universidad de Buenos Aires Argentina